Jobs Report

Remember the old show "Get Smart", when bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart would describe his latest major goof by holding up his fingers about a half-inch apart, and emphatically stating that famous line? In similar fashion...it appears the Department of Labor missed some recent job creation counts by quite a long shot.

Last Friday, the highly anticipated monthly Jobs Report arrived bright and early, showing 110,000 new jobs created during September, very close to what analysts had expected. But the real surprise was the upward revision to last month's shocking number, which had shown a LOSS of 4000 jobs in August. The revised number was a gain of 89,000 jobs, or a change of 93,000! That's right - the Department of Labor "missed it by that much."

The revised jobs report for August and the new jobs report for September, pretty much ended any speculation about a recession resulting from the housing market. Despite low sales and some construction industry layoff the overall job picture continues to do well.

I told you so. When the Commerce Department, mistakenly reported in early September the loss of 4,000 jobs in August, it was front-page material on the Sac Bee. The revised and new job numbers that came out last week was found on in a small article in the business section.