The unemployment numbers caught everyone by surprise. Thursday's reports had predicted a rise to 8.2%, due to several economic factors. Obama's Labor Secretary was forced to come out and defend the numbers, falling back on the "we're all professionals" defense. Convincing, except for a few anomalies.
A summary which accompanies the announcement of unemployment figures is the "Summary of Recent Trends." It's not as boring as it sounds, because of charts like this one:
A bit of explanation is in order. The official unemployment numbers are based on the "Household Survey," based on census figures. Using that figure, the economy apparently added 873,000 jobs in September. Another metric surveyed is the "Payroll Survey" of businesses, which literally speaks to businesses to see how many jobs they've added.
Over the entire last year, the difference between the number of jobs reported between the two is 850,000 jobs. (Nothing sinister there, they use different measurements.) However, 759,000 jobs of that difference occurred in the single month of September.
September was quite a month. October's "revisions" should be interesting.
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