Quote:
Originally Posted by chillrob
All of the jobs reports only include people actively looking, and maybe only if they are receiving IU. So they are always understated, but as long as the way they are calculated stays the same they give relevant information.
Unfortunately non-farm payrolls (much like any major economic metric) is a moving target, and involves seasonal factors along with adjustments that involve educated guesses. This is so because the report must be produced quickly for market consumption.
The BLS QCEW report, which is compiled every quarter, is a much more accurate measure of employment. But it takes much longer to produce, hence it is not considered much by the market. This and NFP have basically been in agreement until last year, when the Philadelphia Fed noticed that NFP was overstating NFP by about 1 million. OCEW will be publishing their next quarter report soon, so we should find out more about the disparity then.