 |
| Nearly a million drop out of the labor force. The trend of a shrinking workforce continues. |
Total employment as measured by the household survey
fell by 735,000 over the month and the employment-population ratio
declined by 0.3 percentage point to 58.3 percent. This employment
decline partly reflected a decline in federal government employment.
and,
Partial Federal Government Shutdown |
| |
| Some agencies of the federal government were shut down or were |
| operating at reduced staffing levels from October 1, 2013, |
| through October 16, 2013. All household and establishment survey |
| operations, including data collection, were suspended during |
| that time period. Shortly after the shutdown ended, October data |
| collection for both surveys began. The Bureau of Labor |
| Statistics (BLS) delayed the publication of this release by 1 |
| week to allow enough time to collect data. The reference periods |
| for the surveys were not changed. The response rate for the |
| household survey was within its normal range, and the response |
| rate for the establishment survey was above average. |
| |
| In the household survey, individuals are classified as employed, |
| unemployed, or not in the labor force based on their answers to |
| a series of questions about their activities during the survey |
| reference week. Workers who indicate that they were not working |
| during the entire survey reference week and expected to be |
| recalled to their jobs should be classified in the household |
| survey as unemployed on temporary layoff. In October 2013, there |
| was an increase in the number of federal workers who were |
| classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. However, there |
| also was an increase in the number of federal workers who were |
| classified as employed but absent from work. BLS analysis of the |
| data indicates that this group included federal workers affected |
| by the shutdown who also should have been classified as |
| unemployed on temporary layoff. Such a misclassification is an |
| example of nonsampling error and can occur when respondents |
| misunderstand questions or interviewers record answers |
| incorrectly. According to usual practice, the data from the |
| household survey are accepted as recorded. To maintain |
| data integrity, no ad hoc actions taken to reassign survey |
| responses. |
| |
| It should be noted that household survey data for federal |
| workers are available only on a not seasonally adjusted basis. |
| As a result, over-the-month changes in federal worker data |
| series cannot be compared with seasonally adjusted over-the- |
| month changes in total employed and unemployed. |
| |
| In the establishment survey, businesses report the number of |
| people who work or receive pay for any part of the pay period |
| that includes the 12th of the month. Persons who work or receive |
| pay for any part of the pay period are defined as employed. This |
| method of classifying workers is the same in all industries, |
| including the federal government. Federal employees on furlough |
| during the partial federal government shutdown were still |
| considered employed in the payroll survey because they worked or |
| received pay for the pay period that included the 12th of the |
| month.
It would seem that the numbers are skewed a bit because of the shut down. This doesn't make it clear about how much it is skewed. But it is probably not skewed by that much. The trends that existed before, such as a shrinking job force, still apply. Bottom line is that fewer Americans are working than when Obama took office.
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