Explaining Employment and Unemployment Stats
It happens on the first Friday of every month: Government economists release new employment and unemployment statistics that gets widely quoted on television, on the Internet and in newspapers. But what exactly is that data? And who analyzes it?
In a continuing effort to expose the "nuts and bolts" of federal agency operations, The Eye -- along with washingtonpost.com's uber-talented Emily Kotecki -- explains what the data represents and introduces you to some of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) economists that analyze the data.
Special thanks to BLS economists Emily Richards and Jim Borbely (seen in the video) and BLS spokesman Gary Steinberg for their explanations of the data.
Make sure to read The Post's Economy Watch for the new employment and unemployment statistics released today.
The Eye is on Twitter! | Track Obama Nominees on Head Count
By
Ed O'Keefe
| April 3, 2009; 8:23 AM ET
Categories:
Nuts and Bolts, Video Report
Save & Share:
Previous: Collective Bargaining Rights for TSOs Proposed
Next: Spotted: Oldest Living Ex-Cabinet Secretary Releases Book
It takes more than the 2000 BLS economists to produce the unemployment index numbers; the US Census Bureau deserves a lot of credit for sampling the households, conducting the interviews, and collecting the data for the Current Population Survey (CPS). You didn't even mention us in this piece.
Posted by: Adele1 | April 3, 2009 1:50 PM | Report abuse
JOB LOSSES - UNEMPLOYMENT RATE - OUT OF WORK
Jan., 2008 - 76,000 4.9%
Feb., 2008 - 83,000 4.8%
Mar., 2008 - 88,000 5.1%
Apr., 2008 - 67.000 5.0%
May, 2008 - 47,000 5.5%
June, 2008 - 100,000 - 5.5%
July, 2008 - 67,000 - 5.7%
Aug., 2008 - 127,000 - 6.1%
Sept., 2008 - 403,000 - 6.1%
Oct., 2008 - 320,000 - 6.5%
Nov., 2008 - 533,000 - 6.8%
Dec., 2008 - 681,000 - 7.2% - 11.1 million (R)
Jan., 2009 - 741,000 - 7.6% - 11.6 million (R)
Feb., 2009 - 651,000 - 8.1% - 12.5 million
Mar., 2009 - 663,000 - 8.5% - 13.2 million
Posted by: buzzm1 | April 3, 2009 3:09 PM | Report abuse
Adele1. The 2000 figure includes all BLS employees working on the many different BLS programs; not just unemployment. We value all of our statistical partners, especially Census.
Posted by: statboy | April 3, 2009 3:48 PM | Report abuse
We encourage users to analyze, comment on and even challenge washingtonpost.com's articles, blogs, reviews and multimedia features.
User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions.