Actually There Are Jobs And There Always Were!!!! Hoo-ray!!! Hoo-ray!!!

This morning The Bureau of Labor Statistics came out and said the economy added 110,000 jobs in September and revised the August number from -4,000 to 89,000. 

Given what a big reaction the market had to the bad jobs report last month and the fact that it probably played a huge role in the Fed’s decision to cut 50 basis points the only reasonable response strikes me as cynicism. 

Hoo-ray!!!  Hoo-ray!!!  (Somebody give me a drink).

When you dig into the report the case for cynicism grows stronger.  Because substantially all of the 93,000 upward revisions for August (-4,000 to +89,000) involved government jobs, which now show an increase of 57,000 compared to last months number showing a decrease of 28,000 (a change of +85,000).

71,000 of this revisions comes in the category “Government: Local Government: Local Government Education” which counts teacher jobs.  So what the government is saying is that they miscounted the change in teacher jobs from July to August last month and that accounted for a 71,000 distortion (See Table B-1 in both reports).

Justin Lahart discussed the problem in counting teacher jobs in this morning’s “Ahead Of The Tape” column.

So make of it what you will.

As for the market, this report seems likely to spur the S&P to an all time closing record.

UPDATE (Fri 10/5, 9:00am PST): Also take a look at The Capital Spectator’s post on the subject, “Never Mind”.