Has the Australian Bureau of Statistics been comprimised?

In June the unemployment rate was 6 per cent.

In July it rose to 6.4 percent the highest in a decade.

Now in August we have 121 000 new jobs the highest ever recorded in this current series which has been running since 1978.

The rate is now back to 6.1 per cent some states like Victoria reduced their rate around 1 per cent,South Australia whose government is a basket case miraculously lost 2.5 per cent.

These numbers have had incredulous responses from many experts Warren Hogan the ANZ Banks' chief economist puts it bluntly,"there is no way this economy created 121 000 jobs in the month"

Recently the government has been under a lot of pressure with the loss of the motor vehicle industry,Ford,Toyota and GM are pulling out,the loss of much manufacturing and massive retrenchment in mining and construction,I cant help but think maybe they got to the Bureau of Statistics and demanded they produce some good news,even if it means providing spurious results.

Is it the ABS that has been compromised or the media reporting it thats been compromised?

From what I understand you can compromise information in the public domain?

July 2014 Unemployed: 756.1 per 1000
August 2014 Unemployed: 764.1 per 1000

Employment Stats (ABS)

What that looks like to me is the unemployment rate has increased, but "seasonally adjusted" it has gone down--I dont know what that means???

Edit to add: Some more info from the ABC about the fluctuating figures
www.abc.net.au...

Usually when this happens you need to look for subtle and not so subtle changes in what is counted and what is not. The Government cannot change the numbers or order them changed but they can change what is and is not counted.

All of these numbers, unemployment, cost of living, etc etc are all just pulled out of a very well credentialed man's backside.

I can tell you now, the Government has no idea what is actually happening. The banking sector get their stats from a rich banker's backside and the Religious sector seems to gather their stats from little kiddies.

Every time a politician speaks, lies come out. We all know this.

Stats are just a more sophisticated way of lying.

P

It's seasonally adjusted.

en.wikipedia.org...

So the numbers "gained" are not necessarily gained.

Looks like Australia is in the same boat as the Eurozone countries.
This could be a transparent notice that the Aussie government is going to delay their turn at QE.
All-Ordinaries Index would take a hit initially in that scenario.

You will find the following article by the ABC a bit more informative.

ABS Casts wide range on jobs estimates - ABC

Doubt the record breaking jobs figures? So does the ABS.

You've no doubt seen reports that 121,000 jobs were created in August. That's the Bureau of Statistics' best guess anyway.

No doubt it's a very educated guess - the bureau interviews around 60,000 people a month to ensure that's the case - but it's still a statistical estimate based on that survey.

What you may not have seen in most reports is that the ABS is only 95 per cent sure that the actual number of jobs created in Australia last month was somewhere between 63,400 and 178,600.

That's right, the magical number of 121,000 is just the midpoint of a range of estimates the bureau constructs from its survey, and seasonally adjusts based on historical experience.

The revered unemployment rate is no different - the ABS says there's a 95 per cent likelihood it's somewhere between 5.7 and 6.5 per cent.

The issue is as above, the numbers are very very inaccurate but are portrayed to be an exact estimate of employment/unemployment.

It is simply a guess, and it relies on a number of model outputs that may be completely irrelevant as the structure of the economy changes.

Those unemployment figures are not neccesarily accurate. The reality is that the sampling that is used to get them is somewhat flawed with lots of data cleansing needing to occur. The real rate that should be looked at is the participation rate of workers in the economy. Because it shows discouraged workers who have dropped off the radar looking for work and no longer claim unemployment. This is really prevalent in the US...like during the last election where the unemployment figure dropped suspiciously but the participant rate never budged.

definitely something fishy going on with the reported numbers

originally posted by: khnum
In June the unemployment rate was 6 per cent.

In July it rose to 6.4 percent the highest in a decade.

Now in August we have 121 000 new jobs the highest ever recorded in this current series which has been running since 1978.

The rate is now back to 6.1 per cent some states like Victoria reduced their rate around 1 per cent,South Australia whose government is a basket case miraculously lost 2.5 per cent.

These numbers have had incredulous responses from many experts Warren Hogan the ANZ Banks' chief economist puts it bluntly,"there is no way this economy created 121 000 jobs in the month"

Recently the government has been under a lot of pressure with the loss of the motor vehicle industry,Ford,Toyota and GM are pulling out,the loss of much manufacturing and massive retrenchment in mining and construction,I cant help but think maybe they got to the Bureau of Statistics and demanded they produce some good news,even if it means providing spurious results.

The ABS has not been compromised. Why must people jump to the worst conclusion they can think of?

The problem is in WHAT is being reported as employment, and HOW it is being reported.

I'll give you an example to help clear things up and you can sleep easy again.

Full time employment, Casual employment, Part time employment, underemployed.

That's all you should need to figure out the rest your self.

This very issue was even discussed in the MAIN STREAM NEWS MEDIA not that long ago.
Have you been paying attention?

originally posted by: mortex
This very issue was even discussed in the MAIN STREAM NEWS MEDIA not that long ago.
Have you been paying attention?

Yes yes it was and i was very happy about that too. The ABS knows about it too and explained it as well. It is trying to become more accurate since this happened i think i read that too.