Friday, January 09, 2004
You just HAVE to read this one
Our childishness must be catching. A reader sent us her scribbled comments on these excerpts of a WSJ article:
A few key points to note:
1. "Nonfarm business payrolls grew by only 1,000 jobs, far fewer than the 150,000 economists had been expecting, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC. ...Those losses (38,000 in retail and 26,000 in manufacturing) offset gains in the professional- and business-services industry, which added 45,000 jobs. The majority of that gain came from the addition of 30,000 temporary-help services jobs during the month."
Reader comment: In other words, the net 1000 gain was due to 30,000 TEMPORARY jobs in the service sector. Without those, there would have been big net LOSS.
2. "Adding insult to injury, the department also cut its earlier estimates of job growth for October and November, saying the job count for those months was 51,000 less than initially thought."
Reader comment: In other words, the job growth reported in the last two months was inflated.
