
US has 501,000 fewer jobs than first reported - tareqak
https://apnews.com/bac6a76b8c0d4f8897d2c8612d2b5bfd
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1123581321
Can anyone comment as to how this might have occurred? Was it a mistake or
just late data? At the time I read the article, it didn’t have these details.

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manderley
The agency was recently moved and lost a huge part of their staff, they're not
going to be as competent as they used to be. The same things is happening to
the USDA.

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vallismortis
I was going to cite the USDA as my primary example. I have been hearing a lot
of this from ARS, FSA and NRRL, and although their specific problems are
different there is a definitely a common theme. The USDA NRRL type culture
collection is currently slated to be autoclaved and shut down, which would
destroy the only known publically available reference samples of many
industrially and medically important microorganisms, including many that are
critical to food safety testing and the original source of antibiotic
compounds (the original source of pennicillin is in that collection).

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ska
That sounds insane.

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vallismortis
This collection has been in place since before World War II. As soon as the
freezers are unplugged, there is no going back.

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ska
> Insanity is the wrong term, because it would imply repeating something that
> has already failed.

However popular that aphorism is, it isn't actually the definition of
insanity.

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mattkrause
Dogs are mammals. Mammals aren’t dogs.

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laumars
'Dog' and 'mammal' are two distinct terms, 'insanity' and 'insanity' are not.

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mattkrause
“Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”
and “insanity” are also different.

The former might be a form of the latter, but you can certainly be insane in
other ways.

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laumars
Sure, but that wasn't what the OP said. They said:

> _Insanity is the wrong term, because it would imply repeating something that
> has already failed._

ie suggesting the opposite of your point; that the term "insanity" is more
narrowly defined rather than broadly defined.

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chiefalchemist
I've noticed these revisions from time to time. Is there anywhere that tracks
them? I'd be curious to know how often positive figures are not so positive?

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tareqak
I don't know if these numbers and their subsequent revisions are always
available in a table. I did find something that looks like the source of this
article, and the website seems to have some mention of having data publicly
available [0]. Maybe the past press releases/statements are also archived?

It'd be a useful side project in my opinion.

[0]
[https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesprelbmk.htm](https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesprelbmk.htm)

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kristopolous
They discover it now and will update the numbers in 6 months? Why?

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ecf
To give the party in power 6 months to come up with a plan to blame this on
the other party, just in time for the 2020 election heating up.

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rgovostes
Where do these figures come from in the first place? Are they based on W-2
filings? Who notifies the federal government when I leave my job? How can
anyone independently verify these figures are accurate?

Edit: This seems to go into many of these details:
[https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cestn.htm](https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cestn.htm)

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mdorazio
For those who aren't familiar and haven't read the link, most initial BLS data
is derived from surveys, not from W2 + 1099 filings. As such, it's an
indicator, not the whole truth.

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apo
> This was the sharpest downward revision in jobs totals since 2009, when the
> economy was just starting to emerge from the Great Recession.

It's not clear what number the article is talking about. Assuming nonfarm
payroll, the BLS has this data set of revisions going back to 1979:

[https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm](https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm)

Assuming these figures report thousands, nothing really jumps out as being
>500, expansion year or not - 2009 included.

Edit:

I suspect the article is reporting total jobs, not jobs change, but I'm not
sure. The BLS link appears to be reporting change in nonfarm employment.
Surprisingly poor labeling of data sets in both cases.

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Steko
This is the annual benchmarking adjustment not the monthly revisions.

