Imagine your dire responsibility as an online broadcaster if you have to follow a report on the Casey Anthony trial with the Bureau of Labor Statistics June 2011 report on two channel switching issues: employment statistics and unemployment rates. This is a review of the data so we can enjoy future ludicrous reactions based on our own common sense.

     The report stated, “Nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in June, and the unemployment rate changed little to 9.2 percent.” While BLS monthly figures are statistically rigorous, they fluctuate for several reasons. They’re collected during one week around the 12^th of the month. Employment figures are payroll numbers from five percent of 9 million unemployment insurance tax reports. Unemployment rates are based on a telephone survey of 60,000 households out of 112 million. Even more drastic fluctuations come from economists’ June predictions, most of which were overly optimistic.

     Nevertheless reporters under deadlines sought expert quotes from inaccurate economists to explain why their forecasts were wrong, which they’d discovered minutes before the reporter contacted them. Economists need to sound authoritative so they gave answers, such as supply disruptions from Japan, bad weather, gas prices shooting up and lack of confidence in a budget deal. They knew about those factors before they made their erroneous predictions.

     Reporters then sought insight from Obama and Congress, neither of who had done anything to improve employment. Obama said we needed a serious plan to deal with debt and deficit. House Speaker John Boehner blamed unemployment on misguided “stimulus” spending, regulations and an overwhelming national debt.

     Their statements didn’t match the data from the report.

     Obama and Congress left tax cuts in place particularly for the wealthy to give them the opportunity to invest in job creating activities. The Report stated, “Employment in most major private-sector businesses changed little over the month.”

     Obama and Congress provided federal stimulus funds for local and state governments, but those have ended so governments have trimmed budgets and payrolls. The Labor report stated, “Employment in both state and local government continued to trend down over the month and has been falling since the second half of 2008.”

     The real fallacy of the reaction to the job report is trying to make sense of employment on unstable monthly numbers instead of looking for a pattern over say, a year. Even a superficial look since June 2010 gives better insight. Nonfarm employment has risen by a million jobs, a meager one percent given our unemployment. Private employment rose by 1.7 million while federal and local government jobs decreased by 700,000.

     The added private sector jobs don’t represent permanent improvements in our economy. The greatest increases were almost all from service providers: (1) professional and business services, half of which were temporary help;  (2) health care and social assistance; and (3) wholesale, retail and transportation. Two industries tied for fourth place, goods producers and leisure and hospitality.

     Job growth going forward is a mixed bag. Our federal leaders are planning to balance the budget by slashing federal spending, which would accelerate lower employment in both federal and local governments and harm most of the services job growth we’ve experienced. Congress could stimulate long-term job growth by passing three pending international trade deals, invest in infrastructure improvements and reform an antiquated patent process, all long-lingering bills on their inactive agenda.

     So there you have a look at one employment/unemployment report on July 8.  Sorry it took so long, but it might be fresh in your mind when the August report comes about and we repeat the mildly amusing but unreasonable process again.