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How About Those August Job Numbers - ABS retracting the false narrative; First home buyer numbers also gone missing in worrying ABS data blackhole
Topic Started: 8 Oct 2014, 06:31 PM (1,300 Views)
Foxy
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Zero is coming...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/08/abs-retracts-data-for-august-showing-121000-new-jobs-were-created

Quote:
 
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has retracted its seasonally adjusted employment data for July and August, which recorded huge swings in the jobless rate.

The number of Australians with jobs rose by a massive 121,000 in August, the largest monthly increase since records began in 1978, the ABS reported last month.

Analysts had anticipated a gain of only 10,000.

A month earlier the ABS said the unemployment rate jumped to a 12-year high of 6.4% in July, which also surprised economists who were expecting the rate to stay steady at 6%.

Doubts were raised about the veracity of both sets of figures at the time they were released.

The figures are adjusted to remove the effect of regular seasonal influences on the data.

But the ABS said there was very little evidence of the usual seasonality in the July and August figures, as well as the September figures, which will be released on Thursday.

The bureau said it would revise the figures for these months by replacing the reported seasonally adjusted figures with the unadjusted figures.

The acting Australian statistician at the ABS, Jonathan Palmer, said there would be a review with independent external input to develop an appropriate method for seasonal adjustment for the October figures and those afterwards.

“It is critical that the ABS produces the best set of estimates that it can,” he said.

“The ABS has not made this decision lightly and believes this approach will result in a more meaningful set of seasonally adjusted estimates.”

AAP chief economist Garry Shilson-Josling said this would mean that the rise of 121,000 jobs in August was likely to be revised to a small rise of 30,000, barring any revisions to earlier data.

The total number of people with jobs in July originally fell by 4,100, but that is likely to be revised to a rise of 4,000.

Unemployment is expected to have stayed steady at 6%, in line with the unadjusted figures already available, for July and August.
http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/n/2/1/u/8/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1456285515560.png
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PiratePete1911
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That's rather interesting, I hope some of the people from the September thread get a chance to see this before it falls off the front page.
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skamy
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The seasonally adjusted figures are always more volatile - it is this model for seasonality that causes the silly numbers picked up by the media.

IMHO it is best to just look at the actual trend data. Which has been totally boring for the last three months.
Definition of a doom and gloomer from 1993
The last camp is made up of the doom-and-gloomers. Their slogan is "it's the end of the world as we know it". Right now they are convinced that debt is the evil responsible for all our economic woes and must be eliminated at all cost. Many doom-and-gloomers believe that unprecedented debt levels mean that we are on the precipice of a worse crisis than the Great Depression. The doom-and-gloomers hang on the latest series of negative economic data.
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Ex BP Golly
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Yet more evidence about dodgy ABS figures.
WHAT WOULD EDDIE DO? MAAAATE!
Share a cot with Milton?
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Admin
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Administrator

Quote:
 
First home buyer numbers also gone missing in worrying ABS data blackhole

Jonathan Chancellor | 8 October 2014

First home buyer numbers also gone missing in worrying ABS data blackhole

It's not just doubts over the unemployment number accuracy of the ABS that is troubling for everyone who wants to gauge the strength or weakness of the Australian economy.

Today's October RBA chart pack again had no first home buyer data from the ABS.

Owner occupiers and investors yes, but not the key indicator of the first timers.

The October chart pack certainly shows the troubling narrowing of the gap between investor numbers and the traditional owner occupier market.

Posted Image

But the first home data disappeared ever since the June chart pack (below).

Posted Image

An RBA spokesperson advised Property Observer back in June that the central bank had decided to remove the data from the chart pack graph while it is being reviewed by the ABS provider.

As I then wrote, the Fairfax Media columnist Michael Pascoe had first noted the RBA had intriguingly dropped first home figures from its June economic data chart pack, suggesting perhaps it was as a consequence of rising concerns about the possible underestimating of first home buyer statistics.

So May (below) was the last time the RBA board published detailed first home buyer numbers, showing that first home buyers had supposedly withdrawn from the market.

Posted Image

These extraordinary data lapses in housing and employment data won't be helping poor Joe Hockey's understanding of the economy. So rather than government trimming the ABS's funding, perhaps it needs a funding boost.

Read more: http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/finding/residential-investment/1st-home-buyer/36595-first-home-buyer-numbers-also-gone-missing-in-worrying-abs-data-blackhole.html
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Oswald
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We are in an economic war, and transparency of policy outcomes only gives comfort to the enemy. We shall decide what is measured in this country, and the manner in which it is reported. It’s time for the ABS to realise that nobody owes it a living; the age of statistical entitlement is at an end. The best thing government can do to ensure the long-term viability of public sector services is to reduce funding. You wouldn’t run a small business the way we run the ABS. We can’t treat the ABS any more favourably than we would treat any other public sector department. The government is not in the business of measuring data.
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Drgonzo
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what a surprise, i have been on about the bulls getting a chubby over every modicum of data that shows some sort of improvement in the economy on various threads for a whil now.
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Stan
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They will pull out the fhb grants soon, and they will work, again.
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Sydneyite
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Drgonzo
8 Oct 2014, 08:25 PM
what a surprise, i have been on about the bulls getting a chubby over every modicum of data that shows some sort of improvement in the economy on various threads for a whil now.
It was the "bulls" here on this site that first started suggesting there may be a problem with ABS first home buyer data over a year ago now (and was even mentioned 18 months back)..... it was picked up on subsequently by several other blogs/sites then some mainstream journo's, and then a couple of months ago the ABS announced they were investigating their FHB series methodology and data.

http://australianpropertyforum.com/topic/9972922/1/

So please, do try and keep up...... :re:
For Aussie property bears, "denial", is not just a long river in North Africa.....
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Elastic
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Sydneyite
8 Oct 2014, 08:37 PM
It was the "bulls" here on this site that first started suggesting there may be a problem with ABS first home buyer data over a year ago now (and was even mentioned 18 months back)..... it was picked up on subsequently by several other blogs/sites then some mainstream journo's, and then a couple of months ago the ABS announced they were investigating their FHB series methodology and data.

http://australianpropertyforum.com/topic/9972922/1/

So please, do try and keep up...... :re:
Well we will have to wait on that report Sydneyite.
It may show that the FHB numbers are actually lower than we thought(but probably not).
It is very concerning that the organisation that gathers data which guides public policy is no longer adequately funded.
For all the talk about the Roy Morgan unemployment numbers being inadequate, it might be time to start giving them a bit more credence.
Only a rat can win a rat race.

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