More numbers-fudging: new jobless claims 467k vs. 726k

The news this morning brought the most recent week's figures for new jobless claims. This is the number of people filing a new claim for unemployment after being laid off.

As per Bloomberg:


Initial jobless claims fell in spite of the fact that continuing claims - meaning people who are collecting unemployment for at least 2 weeks - went up.

That sounded strange to me, so I went looking. And what did I find? The Department of Labor has an interesting news release posted. Please note that this link appears to be static, so the text will most likely change.


...just how much seasonal adjustment is going on here? 259,420 new claims for unemployment benefits were adjusted away?? A quarter of a million newly unemployed people were "seasonally adjusted" to provide a better than expected benchmark number to feed to the press?
If actual initial claims, according to the Department of Labor itself, numbered 726k, why isn't that number the one reported?

Interesting.

Something else to keep in mind are the ever-growing reports of state unemployment systems being overwhelmed all over the country, from coast to coast. Phone lines are jammed, state websites are crashing, and somehow we're expected to believe new claims have gone down? Whatever!!

In my local news papers yesterday I was reading about the various states that are having crashes in their unemployment benefits applications on line because they are not equipped to handle the mass amount of people filing for unemployment, since the government extended the unemployment benefits.

GA was one of them.

Right now our small town lost about 1300 jobs when Cooper tires close their doors during the holidays, that is a lot of jobs in one small town.

Still many people do not qualify for unemployment so those hundreds of thousands will never be added to the total in the jobless claims.

So the numbers as usual are devious and manipulated.

I like to keep tabs on the local job listings just to keep an eye on what is out there should I need to change professions in a jam, and I have to say for the last six months I have seen a serious and steady decline in listings.

Right now as of Jan 8, 09 there is literally nothing being advertised on any of the major listers except MLM scam jobs and ads seeking registered nurses. I live in a mid sized city with a lot of business positioned around, but man there is just nothing out there.

What are these kids doing who are graduating college with $40k in student loan debt and can't find even an entry level $25K per year job?


My sister is an HR rep for a medical manufacturer outside of Charleston, SC. She said this past week they listed a job for clerical work paying $8 hr and they got over 400 resumes within the first two days.

I dont pay any attention to government statistics as they always doctor the true numbers. The proof is in the pudding, just look around. There are a lot of hard up and desperate people looking for work right now.

I dread to see what things could be like by the time the 3rd quarter of 09 gets here.

[edit on 1/8/09 by BlackOps719]

My daughter with a degree from UGA and two bachelors degree in the medical field and research with honors is working at a local bank.

She will be moving home this month so she can pay her students loans.

That tells you what is happening to fresh grads now a day.

Our local base held their annual job market and for the first time in years it attracted 4 thousand people and not enough businesses.

Incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those lower numbers do not mean those people found jobs. It simply means that their benefits ran out and they cannot apply for more benefits for a period of time. The Dept. of Labor loves to use that to say unemployment is falling. But they do not tell you that. The jobless count is still very high. They just dont dare say that and instead, say even more lies like before and say "oh unemployment is down see...not as many filing for benefits"...well duh...when benefit cycles run out, those people are removed from the list, hence the number drops from the unemployment benefit list!! DUH!!!


Cheers!!!!

[edit on 10-1-2009 by RFBurns]

THE BLS date is known to be worthless for accurracy but priceless for Gov't B.S reports..............and false confidence

you see it is priceless (read worthless) because WHEN entering a deepening phase of a recession (the model itself admits this) the model UNDERESTIMATES the amount of unemployment (read new jobs lost) ..........and then 3 months later they say "well the october jobless claims was adjusted upward 100,000" .......like they just did earlier this week........

the value to the markets....(thus the favorability in the press) is that nobody cares NOW that the market was worse than we thought 3 months ago..........just like when the january numbers are adjusted upward 150,000 in April (no-body) will care...........and unless optomistic market investors buck human psychology and realize they should just add 100,000 to each jobless claim report then the BLS will remain the model of choice.

Actually CNBC came truth with the reason why the claims were higher than the actual numbers and that was to manipulate the mentality of the public into accepting gradually what will become a trend for months to come.

When the people are given higher numbers as the expected numbers but then the numbers shows to be lower the people tend to not do the math and inquired as why the numbers do not match, but they take the lower numbers because they sound better.

This is a well know propaganda method that has become very good and acceptable under the Bush administration.