It is not too unusual for rumors to circulate that certain components of economic data contained errors or were just wrong in an instance where the actual number is so far off from expectations. This morning there was a rumor that the jobs data on the non-farm payrolls had an error. The market was expecting a reading of -525,000 or -530,00. We had penned down an unofficial whisper number of -500,000. The grossly different -345,000 started the rumor mill as this was far less than any of the economists surveyed. A reading of 9.4% in unemployment rather then the expected 9.2% also led to many people scratching their heads.
Our call into the Bureau of Labor Statistics was answered with a denial of any errors in the jobs data. The BLS press officer, Gary Steinberg, said the rumor of any errors was a false and said specifically, “We have no plans to revise any of the data released this morning.”
More likely than this being a real rumor, it was likely speculation because the data was so much different than expectations.
Jon C. Ogg
June 6, 2009
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