I saw this just now. Apparently "nonfarm payroll employment" went up 308,000 in March, and the unemployment rate is at 5.7 percent, which the report describes as "about unchanged." I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except for this comment:
...holy crap. I think if we needed proof that the Rovians have taken over the BLS it's in this press release. I cannot remember ever seeing a BLS press release report a .1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate as "about unchanged." This is astounding. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't normally pay a whole lot of attention to employment statistics, but that drove me to the original document, which has a table showing that the unemployment rate in January and February was 5.6 percent in each month (or, "unchanged"), and the unemployment rate in March was 5.7 percent (or, "changed").
Posted by Jason at April 2, 2004 09:29 AM