One Reason Why We Have Trouble Believing Monthy Employment Numbers

We continue to have little faith in the monthly employment numbers that are released–nothing really new here as it seems most of the government numbers are somewhat wacky (a highly technnical term).  Last month when there were expectations for a creation of 200,000 jobs we end up with 142,000.  Forecasters were in a range of 180,000 to 235,000–obviously no one really has a clue.

Now to make it somewhat more complex one has to wonder why there is such low job creation when job openings are now at the highest level in over 15 years.  Here is a chart of Non Farm job openings from the St Louis FED.  We don’t have answers to why we aren’t creating jobs given the availability of positions, but it is food for thought.  Note this is a number from July, but likely holds true now.

Source–St Louis Federal Reserve Bank