The Labor Department’s January survey will include revisions making data for previous months look stronger in some cases and weaker in others.The Labor Department’s January employment report, set to be released on Friday, will include revisions to previous months’ data that may show a stronger or weaker job market than previously reported. This could cause confusion, especially in the current political climate where there is skepticism towards government economic statistics.
The revisions are part of an annual process where the government reconciles the monthly job figures with more reliable data from other sources. This is done to achieve both timeliness and accuracy in the data. Similar processes are in place for other government statistics, such as GDP and personal income.
Economists, including former Commerce Department official Jed Kolko and Brookings Institution’s Wendy Edelberg, have already published forecasts of what the revisions will show. These revisions were scheduled in advance and will use announced methodologies.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings to access the article content. If you are in Reader mode, please log into your Times account or subscribe for full access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want full access to The New York Times? Subscribe.
Source:Read More