>Although I've been impressed with John Crudele, at the New York Post, who
>for over a year has been analyzing the jobs reports as having more to do
>with statistical games than real job booms or busts. He argued that the
>boom in jobs in the Spring was based on "mirage" jobs assumed to exist (ie.
>not actually found in surveys) because of seasonal adjustments, then
>yesterday correctly predicted today's terrible jobs numbers because the BLS
>subtracts jobs in July based on their models.
No, don't ever be impressed with Crudele. He misrepresents things all the time, and is constantly attributing evil motives to the statisticians. The "mirage" jobs are an entirely defensible (and mostly quite accurate) estimate of slots created at startups; the BLS is constantly comparing these imputations to reality and finding the match pretty good. Ditto seasonal adjustment.
Doug