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Terms Used to Calculate Missing Jobs |
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How Can Kerry say Job Growth is Weak & Bush Say It's Strong?
They're talking about different surveys. Two surveys are used to measure employment in the US, the Payroll Survey and the Household Survey. The Payroll Survey is the one more trusted and used by Wall Street, the Federal Reseve Bank, and other financial institutions (Quote). The broader Household Survey gives a picture of the total number of jobs and is used to measure the official unemployment rate. In the last few months payroll employment has stagnated, giving Bush incentive to cite only rising Household Survey employment.
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Are Non-Payroll Jobs Worse?
Not necessarily. Many are great jobs, and they might even be better on average than payroll jobs. Some are high-paying consulting jobs, but others are informal part-times jobs that pay very little. The question is:
When workers lose payroll jobs and find non-payroll jobs, are the jobs they get better or worse, on average than what they had before?
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Non-Payroll Employment Rises During Recessions
The above historical graph shows that non-payroll employment has decreased over time as people moved to more formal, payroll jobs. However, every single recession since 1948 has been associated with a rise in non-payroll employment. Conversely, periods of prolonged economic prosperity, for example the 1960s and the 1990s, have been associated with sharp decreases in non-payroll employment. Starting in 2001 there has been a rise in the number of non-payroll jobs. As in previous times this rise was initially associated with an official recession. This can be seen in the top graph too.
See also: Non-Payroll Employment rises with unemployment
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http://zfacts.com/p/755.html | 01/18/12 07:27 GMT
Modified: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 03:18:58 GMT
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