Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase • Hacker News Board

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#331

Post by llm_nerd » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 3:37 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #298

llm_nerd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent government payroll data has been hugely suspect. On the big release day the numbers are rosy and get reported to much hoopla and "told you" celebration, but then are subsequently revised downwards to little fanfare or notice. And for those who wonder "why revise downward if it's a lie?", because the numbers eventually are going to collide with reality so they need to be right sized after the fact.

Why assume conspiracy, when the reason is known?

What do you think the "reason" is? Several other comments have made self-contradictory claims. NEVER has it consistently over-estimated jobs as it has, in the history of reporting.

Look, yet another stellar jobs report from the B of L today, completely at odds with the actual metrics of the ADP report. CNN reports it as "The US economy added a stronger-than-expected 147,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%"

ROFL. Good god.

The US has never had so incompetent, criminal and malicious of a government. Ever. It is full-bore idiocracy now, with absolutely in the open criminality. It isn't a "conspiracy", we know with utter fact that this cabal of Fox News halfwits and self-dealing creeps are liars. The orange felon rapist charity-thief quite explicitly thought the solution to COVID was simply to stop testing for it. US climate measurements have been annihilated because global warming doesn't exist if you don't test for it.

This is not normal. If you need to comfort yourself by pretending it is, that's just spectacularly sad.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#332

Post by llm_nerd » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

eigen wrote: post #283

slashdev wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers have been so consistently wrong in the same direction. It could be that there are other things going on, but simply that volatile numbers come in later doesn’t seem to explain the bias.

> The numbers have been so consistently wrong in the same direction. summary of mean revision for seasonally adjusted numbers, since 2003 are 2nd-1st: 8 3rd-2nd: 2 1st-3rd: 10 but 2025 has been consistently, so far, be negative revisions. Dec 2024 has some positive revisions but 2023-2024 on the whole was negative while 2017-2022 were on the whole positive revision. so I dont think that there is data to support consi…

Yet another B of L stellar job report just dropped. Once again "higher than expected" jobs.

Anyone want to take bets on how the revisions will go on this?

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#333

Post by tomfucksdan » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 3:47 PM UTC

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Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#334

Post by wnc3141 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

Of course we have alternative measures of unemployment but they're harder to measure and read.

There's something about the so-called "vibecession" - that people might be better at measuring their own circumstances than macroeconomic data provides. In hindsight this is sort of an obvious take.

Real wages and high quality full-time employment have declined, but more importantly wthat people use to measure well being such as career outlook and price of "joy" expenses (concert tickets, hobbies, travel etc.) has significantly contracted or outpaced inflation.

Author Eugine Ludwig wrote this great article for political a few months ago. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-...

Another article on what it means to be priced out of a hobby. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/04/hobby-inf...

Lastly, rep. Ocasio-Cortez struck me with a description of this socio-economic climate on NPR's morning edition a while back. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5306406/alexandria-ocas... In short, she noticed that "everything feels like a scam" - that is, digital distribution has enabled more complex fees, price discrimination, offerings are better optimized for profitability etc.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#335

Post by wnc3141 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #12

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

We have good metrics. The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture. Your scenario would be called out by median household income, or better median disposable household income. Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case. Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers…

Quatar has a very high GDP per capita, day laborers may not celebrate.

We could use metrics such as GINI but it also matters to look at qualitative factors such as worker rights etc. to measure well being

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#336

Post by wnc3141 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:09 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #35

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

> I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. This is captured as part of the "U-6" figure for unemployment. The thing is, at a large scale, these events don't matter. They are rare enough to be noise in the grand scheme of things. T…

gig work platforms have definitely skewed the traditional significance of U-3

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#337

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

hellojesus wrote: post #330

danaris wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What independent media? Mainstream media companies are owned by very wealthy people, who vote Republican, and put their thumbs on the scales over and over again. You can see that in a myriad of different ways, but at no time in recent memory has it been more blatant than during the last election cycle, with events like Bezos forcing the Washington Post to issue no endorsement rather than endorsing Harris. Like, you c…

There is bias in all media. I used independent media to mean the plethora of single or small member operations that publish their findings on their own blogs, where they are not beholden to shareholders or investors. There are also many emerging podcasts which either directly interview candidates or at least discuss the impacts of policy beyond the nonquestions presented by mainstream journalists. For example, how ma…

> The Washington Post is independent media.

If you consider WP to be independent, then which news organizations do you consider not independent? Because I think most people define independent as "not owned or controlled by a billionaire".

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#338

Post by wnc3141 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:12 PM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #292

pkaye wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U6 unemployment rate is supposed to cover those who are underemployed. What is usually reported is the U3 unemployment rate which is closest to that used internationally as defined by ILO. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE

Supposed to, but doesn't. The U6 rate includes two new things: part-time workers, and a very strangely-defined category: people who are NOT working at ALL, AND were looking for work previously, AND have stopped looking for 4+ weeks. It doesn't capture the common on-the-street definition of the word "underemployment", such as a tech worker flipping burgers at mcdonald's. Perhaps that category is simply to hard or expe…

the only signal I can think of is returns on student debt to measure "employment quality" - i.e how well is my education capital being deployed, but any realistic evaluation of the labor market will be complex and include qualitative data.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#339

Post by wnc3141 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

fHr wrote: post #140

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

Same with the stock market completly decoupled from the real economy. It's a wealthy index, there could be a real recession and the stock market still would go up.

Stock market measures two things, 1) the performance of firms within their economic environments. 2) the level of savings to be invested in the stock market.

Both are tied to the labor-share of income. That is, how much income is generated through yield on capital (firm profits returned to shareholders, rents, financial services) compared to earned through labor.

This chart inversely correlates nicely with the stock market. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#340

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Jul 03, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #327

giantg2 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think between agism and ableism probably won't get another developer job.

yeah you will; just think new learning adventure!

Learning isn't a problem. I can quickly learn many things including many certifications with <10 hours of study. None of that matters when it comes to getting a job.