Jul 3, 2008

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You Only Thought Things Were Bad: 2 Months of Job Rerports Adjusted Down

The June jobs report (or “jobless report” depending on how pessimistic you are) came out today. The U.S. lost another 62,000 jobs last month. That’s bad. But at least we expected it. Not like the rest of the numbers the government released today.

Or, I guess, re-released.

The Department of Labor adjusted its figures for April and May today, too, and apparently we haven’t been doing quite as “good” as we thought. May’s original numbers put job losses around 49,000. That number is now 62k, equal to June. And April – remember April? 29,000 jobs lost? It was like a breath of fresh air. Well, April got revised to 67,000. That’s a change of roughly 230%. How is it possible that the people looking into job losses missed 37,000 lost jobs in one month?!

Hey. Wait. Isn’t this report like a key economic indicator? Interesting that the biggest adjustment happened in the month that was originally reported when those economic stimulus checks when out…

I tell you what – let’s find those people who check the job losses and revise July’s number by a couple hundred analysts.

Well, look on the bright side. If we actually lost 62,000 jobs in May, too, then there’s been no change in the past two months. Until next month. When they “adjust” June.

WSJ: Payrolls Shrank Again in June: Jobless Rate Steady at 5.5%