> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> >Doug- You've maintained for a long time that the
> rise of temp and
> >independent contractors was not significant, yet
> there is some evidence due
> >to the divergence between the payroll survey and
> the "household survey"
> >(which is reporting a strong rise in job growth,
> much of it assumed to be
> >self-employment) that new flexibility in hiring
> structures is playing a new
> >role in the economy.
To which Doug replied:
>
> Most contingent workers - temps and part-timers -
> would be counted as
> employed in the payroll survey, so that's not the
> reason for the
> discrepancy. The only exception would be the
> self-employed, who would
> appear in the HH but not the payroll survey, but the
> growth in their
> numbers isn't large enough to explain the
> difference. (There's no
> need to assume self-employment - they're a category
> in the household
> numbers.) One possibility: an explosion in
> employment at new
> businesses that aren't in the payroll survey but
> would be in the HH
> survey. But if that were happening in large numbers,
> tax collections
> would probably be higher than they are. So, as the
> BLS recommends,
> I'd stick with the payroll story as the more
> accurate one.
>
> Doug
>
Just to add to Nathan's insight though - the slight decline in the HH unemployment rate in November (5.9%) compared to the previous month was due to a significant decline in part time unemployment (down to 5% from 5.5%) and professional/business services (this category, down to 7.7% from 8.1%, includes temp workers). The full-time unemployment rate remained stuck at 6.1%.
another nut to crack is why the USD slid further against most other currencies on the back of such positive productivity numbers a few days ago?
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