With the unemployment situation report out for just 22 minutes, it is going to be a safe bet that they’re liable to focus in on the fact that the headline rate remained unchanged in July at 9.5%. As for the 131,000 jobs lost, they’re likely to discount that by saying it was mostly temporary census workers. Funny how the hiring of those folks was trumpeted as escorting in a new period of American prosperity, but their dismissal (albeit planned) is barely mentioned.
However, there are two big pieces here that the media will likely miss. The first is the fact that another 189,000 people left the work force in July. Balance this on the fact that roughly 150,000 generally enter the workforce each month due to population demographics. The huge departure from the workforce was what kept the headline rate unchanged. Those folks who have left the workforce are now officially off the BLS radar, never to be counted again unless and until they find work. For now, they don’t count at all, but still don’t have work, yet they’re not unemployed. Amazing.
The second thing the media is likely to gloss over is the CSEBD (birth/death) adjustment, which is forthcoming. We’ll see how many fictitious jobs BLS decided to add to the numbers this month. This adjustment has been horribly generous in the past; we’ll see how things pan out this month.