Try to decipher the jobs of September

The “experts” think the Labor Department on Friday will announce that between 210,000 and 220,000 new jobs were created in September.

I think those estimates are too optimistic — and that media organizations report the predictions of these experts because they just don’t understand the hidden forces that affect this country’s employment statistics.

For example, the Washington Post on Sept. 17 carried a story with the headline, “More businesses are closing than opening. Can Congress help turn that around?”

The story was buried in the paper’s “On Small Business” column and it didn’t appear in the newspaper until five days after it was posted online.

In other words, the paper didn’t think this piece was a big deal. But it is.

News that small businesses aren’t being formed like they once were isn’t shocking. The Washington Post used public Census Department data and it quoted small business experts imploring our do-nothing elected officials to do something for a change.

Also, the Brookings Institution — a bipartisan think tank — recently released similar information about small business formations.

So why do I think it is still important? Because, as I’ve been telling you for years, Labor has been bulking up its job-growth statistics with estimates on how many new companies are quietly coming into existence.

These guess-timates are called the birth-death model and I believe they are a complete fraud.

This year alone, Labor’s guess-timates have added 634,000 jobs to the country’s total employment picture. That’s a lot of can’t-prove-they-are-real jobs.

In 10 of the 12 months, Labor guess-timates add phantom jobs. In two months, it subtracts jobs.

One of the two months is January; this year the guess-timate deducted 307,000 jobs because BLS believes more companies are dying than being born.

The other month for guess-timate deductions of phantom jobs is September.

Which brings me back to why I think the September job estimates from the “experts” are too optimistic.

To be sure, the BLS won’t subtract a whole of jobs — not as many as January.

Last September there was a reduction of just 30,000 jobs.

But the deductions will be enough to make Friday’s report disappointing.

Maybe even very disappointing.

The Wall Street Journal appears to be getting tripped up, too, on the basics of job creation — specifically, how the unemployment rate is determined.

Someone at the paper’s online version wrote a story with the headline, “Lies, Damned Lies and [Jobs] Statistics,” on Sept. 23.

The gist was that states run by Republican governors were seeing a jump in their unemployment rate whereas states run by Democrats weren’t. The charge was that “gnomes at the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics were rigging state unemployment data” in advance of the midterm elections.

Here’s the problem. The unemployment data are released by Labor’s BLS but it is compiled by the Census Bureau. And my readers already know what I think about data falsification at Census.

So, if my friends at the WSJ want to pursue this lead, they ought to be calling Census and not Labor.

The other day, I was driving when my right knee got itchy and I scratched it. Normally that event wouldn’t make this column — not even on a slow news day.

But I happened to be driving my Camaro, one of the millions of cars recalled by GM because the ignition can be shut off if the key is jostled. And that’s exactly what happened when I scratched.

While having the engine suddenly shut down was disconcerting, I can report, thankfully, that there was no crash. I was on a back road and no other cars were around.

After alerting GM, I was told to exchange the current key I have for a new smaller one.

I’ve told GM that’s not good enough. Since the paddle shifter and the windshield-wiper stalk are right near the ignition, the car can still be accidentally shut down with the careless swipe of a hand.

I have told GM that I want the ignition changed so it can’t be turned to the off position while the car is in motion. I’m still waiting to hear back a week later.

Until GM starts acting like an honorable corporate citizen and fixes its problems, I suggest you buy some other company’s car.

The Commerce Department last week said the nation’s gross domestic product really rose 4.6 percent in the second quarter, up from an earlier estimate of 4.2 percent.

That’s nice to hear, of course.

But if Commerce had been using the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculation of inflation — instead of its own, much lower rate — GDP growth would have only been around 3.3 percent.

Second-quarter growth comes after a first-quarter contraction. And experts expect only about 3 percent growth when the third-quarter results are announced in a couple of weeks.

Friday, we’ll get the latest employment numbers. Let’s see if they jibe with the type of growth being seen in GDP.