Economy Now
One spot where government spending is going up
May 3, 2013: 5:51 PM ETAmid constant stories of sequester-related cuts, here's a rare place where the government is increasing its spending: The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently ramped up its monthly survey of businesses, leading to the highest response rate on record for the February jobs report.
Perhaps that's one reason the revisions were so large.
Here's what happened: When the Labor Department released the jobs report Friday morning, it wasn't just the April numbers that came as a welcome surprise. As it usually does, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised the two prior months, and this time, those revisions showed that the economy added 114,000 more jobs than originally reported.
The February revision was especially dramatic. The government first reported that 236,000 jobs were created in February, but now it's saying 332,000 were added that month. That makes it the strongest month for job growth since the Census hired thousands of temporary workers in mid-2010.
Why such a big change? The BLS received more of its surveys, and in the case of the February report, the response rate was 97% -- the highest on record since they started tracking response rates in 1981.
Each month, the BLS undertakes the gargantuan task of surveying about 145,000 businesses and government agencies nationwide. The BLS uses a variety of techniques, including Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing -- a system where an interviewer follows a script and fills in a computerized survey.
Other methods enable businesses to self-report their data over the phone, fax or a web survey. Large companies also provide electronic files to BLS that includes data from all their work sites.
But not all the surveys come in on time. When BLS first reports the data, it has usually received about 73% of the survey results. By the second time it reports the figure, that response rate usually is in the low 90s. And by the third reading, it's more like 95%.
Recently, the BLS invested more funds in its survey program, after cutting costs in other areas. A BLS economist explains:
As part of a multi-year initiative, CES consolidated some of the State and area programs and that cost savings was applied to the Data collection program. Additional funds were able to be spent on Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) collection, which has a higher response rate than if the respondents were to report solely using web collection. January was the first month those improvements could be seen in the sample collection.
If the response rates continue to improve, perhaps we should be looking for more large revisions ahead.
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April jobs report preview: More slow hiring ahead
The Labor Department will release its latest update on the U.S. job market Friday morning, and the outlook is neither rosy nor gloom and doom. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney are expecting 140,000 jobs were created in April.
While that would be an improvement compared to the meager 88,000 jobs added in March, it's really not much to write home about either. Over the past 12 months, the U.S. economy added an MORE
Annalyn Kurtz - May 2, 2013 2:58 PM ET -
Hooray for Hollywood! Movie biz lifts job growth
The labor market improved in February, and the jobs Oscar goes to... Hollywood?
The entire U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in February, but the film industry deserves a special shout-out. This sector alone added 21,000 jobs, marking a 5% employment boost in motion picture and sound jobs in just one month.
This is highly unusual, and while the data can be choppy from month to month, it is not a statistical fluke, MORE
Annalyn Kurtz - Mar 8, 2013 12:22 PM ET -
Women and men are now even in the jobs recovery
Forget the "mancession" or the "he-covery." Men suffered the biggest job losses in the financial crisis, and also gained the most post-recession jobs.
But now, men and women have equal footing in the recovery.
As of November, both genders have gained back half the jobs they lost in the financial crisis, according to Labor Department data.
The recession hit male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing, far harder than female-dominated industries like health care MORE
Annalyn Kurtz - Dec 9, 2012 2:27 PM ET -
Jobs report likely to force Bernanke's hand
A weak August jobs report signaled hiring continues to slog along at a snail's pace, giving the Federal Reserve even more reason to enact more stimulative measures -- possibly as soon as next week.
The economy added just 96,000 jobs in August. And even though the unemployment rate dipped to 8.1% from 8.3% in July, any number above 8% is still uncomfortably high for the Fed. (Inflation, on the other hand, is MORE
Annalyn Kurtz - Sep 7, 2012 10:21 AM ETPosted in: Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, jobs, jobs report, monetary policye, QE3, quantitative easing, recovery -
Communists in the Labor Department? Really?
Last time I checked, 2012 isn't the year of the Third Red Scare. Maybe I'm wrong?
Imagine my surprise when I received a press release in my email this morning, complaining about a woman with ties to "radical Jewish" and "Communist" views infiltrating the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I had to double check my calendar. Yep, it's still 2012.
This inflammatory allegation was not based on the person's career and academic record MORE
Annalyn Kurtz - Jul 19, 2012 3:08 PM ET -
Nuclear sentinel to help keep jobs data under wraps
The Department of Labor has asked Sandia National Laboratories to take a look at its data security procedures, including how the agency keeps the all-important monthly jobs report secret until its official release.
Yes -- the same Sandia National Laboratories that safeguards the nuclear arsenal of the United States.
The company's involvement was first reported by CNBC, and an agency official confirmed details to CNNMoney.
According to the official, the agency is now MORE
Charles Riley - Mar 8, 2012 3:43 PM ET
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