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N.C. September jobs report a parodoxical one
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- Jason deBruyn
- Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal
- Email | Twitter
The North Carolina September jobs report again proved paradoxical; one measure showed the state lost jobs, while another showed a rather robust growth.
The conflicting numbers again highlight that these figures are mere estimates, and better taken in full context, rather than simply measuring month to month.
A survey of individual households indicates that North Carolina lost 5,600 jobs from August to September, a decrease of 0.1 percent to 4.3 million employed, on a seasonally adjusted basis.
By a survey of employers, however, the state added 14,000 workers to the nonfarm payroll and 16,700 workers in private industries, again on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Read: Employers add jobs, but N.C. unemployment rate rises to 6.5%
North Carolina measures unemployment in two ways. The survey of households determines the broadly used unemployment rate and is intended to capture the economy as a whole. By this measure, the unemployment rate stood at 6.7 percent in September, down from August, but still higher than any other month since January.
Read: N.C. economy sheds thousands of jobs in June
The survey of employers determines the nonfarm payroll, which excludes various sectors, including government and nonprofits. The nonfarm figures represent about three-quarters of the overall economy.
Further confusing the September report are the widely disparate the non-seasonally adjusted figures. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that eliminates the influences of weather, holidays, the opening and closing of schools, and other recurring seasonal events from economic time series. This allows for better month-to-month comparisons and analysis. Labor market experts typically caution against relying too much on figures that are not seasonally adjusted, however the figures don't typically vary from the seasonally adjusted figures as much as they did in September.
Jason deBruyn covers The Biopharmaceutical and Health Care industries. Follow him on Twitter @jasondebruyn.
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