Suspicion about the federal government's September jobs report has fallen on Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who appeared on CNBC this morning and defended the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), claiming -- falsely -- that upward revisions of 86,000 jobs were from the private sector. In fact, the new number is entirely accounted for by upwards revisions to state and federal government payrolls.

The BLS reported that while only 114,000 jobs were created in September -- which would have translated into a rise in unemployment from 8.1% to 8.2% -- the unemployment rate fell dramatically to 7.8%. That unusual drop is the fastest in nearly three decades, and was unexpected even in the rosiest predictions.

One reason for the rise was an upward revision of 86,000 to the July and August jobs numbers--all of which came from a 91,000 increase in the estimate of public sector jobs. Private sector job estimates were actually revised downward by 5,000.

In addition, the BLS reported a large rise in the number of part-time jobs, adding 600,000 jobs to the total -- a dramatic increase of 7.5%, not explained by any other economic indicators -- and raising questions about whether the government had changed the way it counted part-time workers.

Solis was adamant today in defending both the revisions and the BLS's methodology for counting part-time workers -- relying largely on the upwards revisions for July and August jobs:

"You know, I'm insulted when I hear that because we have a very professional, civil service organization where you have top, top economists that work at the BLS. They've been doing these calculations. These are -- these are our best trained and best-skilled individuals working in the BLS, and it's really ludicrous to hear that kind of statement, and I say that because just look at the -- we have to look at what happens across the board, not just in one month, but look what happened in the last two months. We also saw revisions there upwards of 86,000 additional jobs added and this brings us now to 5.2 million private sector jobs across the board, we saw 104 private sector jobs created..."

Note that Solis describes the 86,000 upward revision as if it were an increase in private sector jobs, though in fact the increase came entirely from revisions to public sector payrolls by cash-strapped federal and state governments. Instead of shedding jobs, as previously claimed, governments have been adding jobs.

READ FULL SOURCE ARTICLE

Editor's Note: Please, Solis, a former union big wig, has been manipulating the unemployment numbers since her tenure began, that's why the definitions and demographic inclusions for the U3 unemployment rate have canged almost fluidly throughout her reign. The U6 rate is much more representative of the true unemployment in the US and that stands at 14.7%. But an all inclusive rate, calculated by ShadowStats.com, the SAS rate, stands stuck at 22.8%. Solis, should either resign or stand charges...


The BasicsProject.org informational and educational pamphlet series is now available for Kindle and iPad. Click here to find out more...

The New Media Journal and BasicsProject.org are not funded by outside sources. We exist exclusively on tax deductible donations from our readers and contributors. Please make a tax deductible donation today.