Michael Lucas feedback on July 1st, portray a grim image of Wisconsin employment. For comparability, listed here are another mixture numbers, together with the Philadelphia Fed’s coincident index, launched at the moment.
Determine 1: Wisconsin Nonfarm Payroll Employment (darkish blue), Philadelphia Fed early benchmark measure of NFP (pink), Civilian Employment (tan), actual wages and salaries deflated by nationwide chained CPI (sky blue), GDP (crimson), coincident index (inexperienced), all in logs 2021M11=0. Supply: BLS, BEA, Philadelphia Fed [1], [2], and writer’s calculations.
The coincident index exhibits speedy progress in current months (revising up Could’s quantity). That is fascinating to the extent the coincident index depends totally on labor market indicators.
Mr. Lucas’s level in his article is that extra dependable indicators of employment have proven decreases in jobs, viz:
The lack of jobs over the previous yr might be extra simply seen by referring to the BLS’s QCES survey—a lagging indicator of the financial system that’s among the many most correct and complete surveys of {the marketplace}. In line with knowledge from that survey, Wisconsin gained a web whole of 8,099 jobs from 2023Q1-Q3 (This autumn knowledge just isn’t out there but). Nonetheless, within the second and third quarters, Wisconsin misplaced a web whole of 20,207 jobs.
He presents this desk in assist of this argument.
Supply: Lucas (2024).
Apparently, Mr. Lucas just isn’t conscious that the QCEW knowledge just isn’t seasonally adjusted, so that actually solely the q3/q3 calculation makes a lot sense.
Personally, I’m not conversant in the QCES (anyone who’s, please inform me what it’s). I am conversant in the QCEW, which isn’t a survey, however a census (therefore the “C” in QCEW).
I plot the modifications in employment from BED (a survey), QCEW and from the CES.
Determine 2: Change from 2021Q4 in Wisconsin personal nonfarm payroll employment from Present Inhabitants Survey (CPS) (blue), in Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) (inexperienced), and from Enterprise Employment Dynamics (BED) survey (tan), all in 000’s. QCEW sequence seasonally adjusted by writer utilizing X-13 (log rework) on month-to-month knowledge. Supply: BLS, and writer’s calculations.
To spotlight the significance of seasonal adjustment, examine nsa QCEW vs. sa QCEW…
Determine 3: Wisconsin personal nonfarm payroll employment from Present Inhabitants Survey (CPS) (blue), from Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, not seasonally adjusted (QCEW) (mild inexperienced), from Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, (QCEW) (inexperienced), all in 000’s. QCEW sequence seasonally adjusted by writer utilizing X-13 (log rework) on month-to-month knowledge. Supply: BLS, and writer’s calculations.
