[shkkmo]

> That is both a large sample size,

It doesn't matter how large your sample size is if your sampling method is biased. This could be measuring market share gain/loss in different segments of a steady employment environment.

> disregarding the entire report as noise

Studies with bad / non public sampling methods should be, at a minimum, treated with great skepticism. Why would that not apply here?

[robocat]

A factual number that has less statistical noise or political bias is extremely valuable. Yes, one needs to factor for the biases but that doesn't mean the number should be ignored.

The trend is useful, since one can fairly safely assume that most of the biases haven't radically changed.