Loyal readers know that I’m a bit skeptical re: the employment numbers that the BLS has been spitting out in recent months.
Two reasons: (1) Unemployment rates are diverging from the Gallup daily surveys, and (2) Seasonal adjustment factors are boosting the employment numbers.
First, the Gallup relationship …
Historically, Gallup’s mid-month unemployment rate has tracked closely to the BLS end-of-month rate.
Not so in February … Gallup reported 8% … BLS reported 8.2%.
Hmmm.
Gallup’s mid-month rate for March was 8.9%.
Let’s see what the BLS says tomorrow.
* * * * *
The 2nd number to watch is the the seasonal adjustment adder.
For the prior10 years, the BLS has seasonally adjusted February employment numbers upward by 1.1423%.
Last month, they upped the raw numbers by 1.1688%.
That’s a big difference when floated into the unemployment rate calculation.
The prior 10 year adjustment factor for March has been .6209 %.
If the seasonal adder is higher than that tomorrow … be suspicious.
* * * * *
My bet: the unemployment rate will magically hang at 8.3% … .6% below the Gallup number.
The Homa Files 