[y0eswddl]

> My feeling is there are often factors which are not captured in job market statistics

they absolutely manipulate the numbers and choose a formula that doesn't accurately represent most people's feelings about the market. I always trust a lot of anecdata over the "official" numbers - word of mouth almost always indicates a problem before the official numbers do.

[squishington]

Thanks for your input. I have a similar feeling about general economic matters. I like Gary Stevenson's perspective on this. When the numbers say the economy is doing well, but you talk to "ordinary people" and they say they feel their living standard is declining, which source do you believe? All inputs should be considered to try to get an accurate picture.

[gruez]

>they absolutely manipulate the numbers and choose a formula that doesn't accurately represent most people's feelings about the market.

Examples of this?

[DerArzt]

Well an obvious recent attempt happened in America with their latest jobs numbers. The President tried to bully the record keeper to change the numbers. When that didn't work the President moved to fire the record keeper (the last I checked the record keeper still has their job).

[gruez]

As bad as the politicization of the BLS is, that's nowhere close to the original accusation that the formulas have been tampered with. Moreover the previous comment implied this was some sort of long standing practice, whereas the BLS firings only happened recently.

[y0eswddl]

well, for one, there's 6 different formulas for unemployment/jobs numbers...

and they don't count ppl who stopped looking for work for whatever reason nor do they count underemployed ppl who are working, but still don't earn enough to live.