Calculated Risk on March Jobs Report

Aargh! Beware of reporting on the March Employment Report

The March report will be distorted by two factors: 1) any bounce back from the snow storms in February, and 2) the decennial Census hiring that picked up sharply in March.

These are real payroll jobs, but the Census hiring is temporary - and the Census jobs that are added in March, April and May will all be lost over the following 6+ months.

What we are interested in is the underlying trend of payroll job growth. To find that number we need to adjust for the Census jobs (although they are reported NSA), and we also need to adjust for the February snow storms. Later this year we will need to add the Census jobs back to find the trend.

The important point is 190,000 is probably a weak number for March - and probably not "setting the stage for a broadening of the expansion" - although we need to see the details.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House