Every time a national unemployment report comes out, I tweet the
many details from @politicalmath. Frequently I get a lot of the
same questions, so I thought I’d jot down a quick summary on
unemployment reports and numbers and where they come from. There
are 2 kinds of employment numbers, summarized here: -
Establishment Data (Current Employment Statistics or CES) – this
survey covers 400,000 businesses and counts the number of
payroll positions that are filled. - Household Data (Current
Population Survey or CPS) – this survey covers 60,000 households
and counts the number of people who are employed and unemployed.
When an employment report comes out from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS), they usually report: - The unemployment rate,
which is calculated using household data - The number of jobs
added, which comes from the establishment data Sometimes this
data can seem contradictory. For example, between March and June
2011, we gained 290,000 jobs but the unemployment rate went up
.4% (from 8.8% to 9.2%).