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%

Good News! Right?

Less people lost their jobs last month than the month before! Right? That’s great, right?! I mean, right?!!

The monthly jobs report spurred a surge on Wall Street friday. Yes, the same report that said 20,000 people lost their jobs. I know that seems bad, but when analysts expect numbers in the 60-70k range, 20,000 isn’t so bad anymore. Economically, I mean.

Still, remember when the jobs report didn’t have a minus sign in the front of it? Yeah, me neither.

Let’s play catchup…

In case you (we) missed it…

The jobs outlook keeps getting worse, the NLRB only has 2 members, TV is slowly coming back (with the right contract), it’s not a great time to be looking for a legal legal job (which is super), and the Supreme Court* decided that 401(k) participants were actually entitled to their money, it doesn’t take much to satisfy the EEOC, and Judge Alex didn’t actually win.

There, now we’re all on the same page. Keep up from now on, huh?

*(For a full[?] list of recent and pending SCOTUS employment law cases, see Ross’ Employment Law Blog here).