It is being reported that the ADP report is having a lot of trouble dealing with the "seasonally adjusted" issue as to accuracy and consistency. (Mark Viner to FNB, 1/5/2012). That explains some the inconsistencies I am seeing in the latest labor reports - since and including November.
The unemployment average for November dropped from 9.0% in October to 8,6% - a "fact" that would have required the creation of 615,000 new jobs when less than 120,000 were created. The D o Labor admitted that 350,000 quit looking for jobs and were dropped from the roles but, still, if we add 350,000 and 120,000, we are still "short" 145,000 jobs. No one knows how to account for that total. Playing games is the only conclusion . . . . . during an election season. The Obama Administration wants to continue that illusion of a sharply improving jobs market, so we have the Administration playing with the December numbers in order to set up for the Jan 6th report for December's unemployment averages.
I expect to see a December unemployment average of 8.4% or 8.5%, down from the mystery percentage of 8.6% (November) and 9.0% for October. If I am correct, this business of playing with the numbers will blow-up on Obama before the election. He did this very thing, play with the unemployment totals, during the summer of 2009, using census workers to deflated the rising totals of unemployment.
Note: (may list from reported numbers) - only one week of this 4-week report is revised, thus my claim of "playing with the numbers." Revised numbers are always higher.
Dec. 31 372,000 unadjusted (this report)
Dec. 24 387,000 adjusted from initial report of 381,000
Dec. 17 366,000 / first adjust to 364,000 but later reported back to 366,000
Dec. 10 368,000 (I actually do not remember this report.)
The 4 week average was 373,250 but is being reported at 375,000 in the previous report (all down from the previous 4 week average of 380,75) (above the yellow line) Understand that this 4 wk average has two unadjusted totals - the 266,000 number and the current 372,000 number and, maybe, the 368,000 which I have not investigated. The claim of a 5,750 drop in the 4-average is simply not true, When all is said and done, it is entirely likely that the current 4-average will be the same or higher than the previous of 380,750.