The new employment report for July will be out on Friday.
Economists predict about 100.000 private sector jobs were created in July, but they also believe that overall 90.000 jobs were lost, because the Census Bureau fired 190.000 workers in July.
http://www.marketwatch.com/column/economic-preview
So here`s my question:
Take a look at this table from the Census Bureau. It shows that at the end of June, 150.000 people were paid by the Census Bureau, compared with 164.000 at the end of July.
http://2010.census.gov/news/releases/jobs/temp-workers.html
If the Census Bureau actually increased their payrolls, why do "experts" assume 200.000 Census jobs were cut in July ?
Yours is a very good question.
First, for a number of reasons, government numbers often appear to be (and often are), contradictory.
Second, many of the so-called 'experts' have been repeatedly 'burned' over the past few months with excessively optimistic projections on employment. Now many of them are trying to hedge their projections. Remember all those articles with the word 'unexpectely'?
Third, absent the BLS kicking more people out of the 'labor force,' an increase of 100,000 jobs would be insufficent to keep the unemployment rate from rising.
Finally, something you did not mention, but which is frequently misinterpreted is that government job losses are likely to be more than census job losses because many states and local governments are shedding payrolls.