VizWorld.com

Today the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the latest unemployment numbers with the unemployment rate holding steady at 9.7%. If you look at the underlying numbers, the actual rate is 9.749%, so they barely skirted an increase in the rate. As we have pointed out in the past, the numbers for March need to be taken with a grain of salt since it includes hiring people for the ten-year census. While it is great that more people have work because of the Census, it masks what the true situation is in the economy, and unfortunately many of these new hires will be let go in a couple of months.

BillShrink has posted an infographic taking a look at unemployment situation. They graph the 35 hardest hit metropolitan areas, the 5 metropolitan areas with the lowest unemployment, and take a look at the overall situation at the state level.

Across the nation, cities have seen rising unemployment rates and many people are struggling to find jobs. In some areas of the country, that may be more difficult than others. Today we look at the cities in America that have been hit the hardest by job loss and have the highest rate of unemployment.

via Unemployed: America’s 35 Hardest Hit Cities.

Graphics infographic, unemployment

The online magazine Mint has posted a new interactive infographic called The Employment Situation in Perspective. I applaud the fact that they included information about the employed, unemployed, and those not in the labor force.

The problem begins with the use of a stacked chart. The problem with stacked charts is that it is difficult to how things are varying with time. For example, can you tell that the civilian labor force has held relatively stable at 153.17 million people? It has varied by plus or minus one percent over the last two years. Can you tell if there were more unemployed in January 2009? 2010?

You can find out more about the job losses and the unemployment rate in our articles: American Idle – Part 1, American Idle – Part 2, and American Idle – Part 3, as well as Correlation does not imply Causation.

By any measure, the unemployment rate is on the rise. But exactly how bad is the problem and what are the implications for the broader economy? To put things in perspective, we need to consider how the unemployment rate is calculated, who is considered employed and who isn’t. Many claim the official rate is flawed and presents an optimistic picture that doesn’t truly reflect reality. Other quoted statistics measuring job loss can be deceptive if selective time periods are used. In our latest infographic we have taken a broad view of the American workforce over the last five years showing the various employment conditions and how each is categorized.

via The Unemployment Situation in Perspective | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice.

Graphics infographic, unemployment

It bears repeating once again that Correlation does not imply Causation. We are back again, with the dueling charts that attempt to show one political party in the United States is better than another political party based on government statistics plotted against who is in power. The first chart to the right is one that we talked about some time ago. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would have us take a look at the job losses as report by the BLS, and correlate them with the President of the United States. From the bar chart to the right, one could mistakenly make the case that President Bush caused all the job losses, and President Obama has stopped the job losses.

However, if we look at the cumulative job losses, then one can make the case that things have continued to get worse under the Obama Administration. The chart to the right looks at the cumulative job losses under both administrations. The Y-axis to the right shows job losses in the thousands of jobs. Thus, the cumulative job loss is around 6.8 million jobs. Both the first chart, and the second chart use the same data from the same place. Both tell a completely opposite story. Neither is correct since there is no real link between who is President and job losses. It bears repeating once again that Correlation does not imply Causation.

Today, we see another one of these charts that attempts to paint one party as being better for jobs and the other party as being a jobs killer. Matthias Shapiro has created the third chart to the right, and he makes the same mistake that the other charts have made. He looks at whether one party in Congress, as opposed to the President, creates more jobs than the other. As British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” From the article:

The chart, below, is Shapiro’s graphical attempt to answer the question, “Does a Republican congress create more jobs?”

Shapiro gathered data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment numbers are averaged by quarter and charted from 2003 to the present. (2010 Q1 is just January, 2010) Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in January 2003. Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in January 2007.

via Data Visualization: Fighting Fire with Fire | TechRepublican.com.

Graphics data visualization, infographic, unemployment

On March 5th, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%. At the same time, the BLS reported that 36,000 jobs were lost. If you take into account that the Census hired 15,000 people, then the jobs lost would have been 51,000. The reason that the employment rate held steady while job losses continued is that the Current Employment Statistics (CES) is where the jobs number comes from. This is a survey of approximately 400,000 businesses. It is this survey that is showing all the job losses. However, this survey has nothing to do with the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is calculated by the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is commonly called the Household Survey.

Two different surveys point to two different outcomes. One survey says that job losses continued, while the other survey says that nothing changed.

But this still leaves an open question. Why did unemployment hold steady in the face of continued job losses? There are some possible answers. One possible answer would be that the unemployed did not look for work in the last 4 weeks. That would disqualify them from being unemployed. Another possible answer would be that the unemployed were looking for a full-time job, but found a part-time job instead. That would disqualify them from being unemployed.

Yet another possibility is that the Seasonal Adjustments to the unemployment rate are hiding the true picture. If you take a look at the following graph, we can see a plot of the Seasonal Adjusted Unemployment Rate versus the Non-Seasonal Adjusted Unemployment Rate. As workers are hired for the Christmas season, the unemployment rate temporarily drops. Every January, there is a spike in the unemployment rate as temporary workers are laid off after the Christmas season. For example, the Non-Seasonal Adjusted Unemployment Rate in January 2010 was 10.4% versus the Seasonal Adjusted Unemployment Rate of 9.7%

To smooth out the bumps caused by this, the BLS seasonally adjusts the numbers. There is nothing wrong with these adjustments, as long as the BLS is consistent with them.

The seasonal adjustments normally spike in January, and it did so this year by adjusting the unemployment rate downward by a record 0.91 points. In February, the unemployment rate was seasonally adjusted downward by 0.71 points. This seasonal adjustment was a record for February, and third highest overall.

What can we expect for March? For March, you can expect a seasonal adjustment downward of about 0.4 points. In addition, the Census is expected to hire approximately 100,000 people in March. Thus you can expect the unemployment rate to fall.

Since the leg up on the seasonal adjustments is so large, will the downward leg be just as large? In other words, will the seasonal adjustments make the unemployment rate worse in the coming months? We will have to wait and see, but the answer could be seen as early as the April numbers.

Graphics feature, unemployment

The Wall Street Journal has an interactive infographic showing the job losses from December 2007 through February 2010. They break down the increase in unemployment by sexes, and by race. The one exception are Asians, where they combined the two sexes together. I guess that the reason they do that is that otherwise the numbers would be too small to show.

On another tab of the same graphic, the Wall Street Journal shows job losses by sectors for the same time period.

Personally, I prefer the chart that Calculated Risk created. He took at look at the unemployment rate by level of Education. As might be expected, people who graduate with a bachelors degree or higher have a lower unemployment rate which currently is hovering near 5%. For those who do not graduate high school , the situation is much worse since they have an unemployment rate three times worse. This is yet another good reason to stay in school.

via Outlook Brightens for Jobless – WSJ.com

via : Unemployment Rate and Level of Education – Calculated Risk

Graphics infographic, interactive, unemployment

On February 5th, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the unemployment rate fell to 9.7% from 10.0%. While I am more than happy that fewer people are unemployed, I have reasons to be skeptical. The problem is that we read news reports of continued job losses, yet we also hear that the unemployment rate is falling. It seems that something does not add up. Let’s see if we can take the massive amount of data that is available at the BLS, perform some simple visualizations, and see if we can understand why continued job losses and lower unemployment can happen at the same time.

Read more…

Science employment, feature, unemployment

VisualEconomics has posted an infographic showing a decade of unemployment. The problem with using a map of the United States to show unemployment is that it limits you to just a few snapshots in time. In this case, the snapshot is limited to the years 2000, 2005, and 2009. However, it does not take much to realize that of whatever political stripe you are, that things have gotten worse over the past decade. Let us hope that the next decade turns out to be much better.

Click to see the graphic full-size.

via : A Decade of Unemployment

Graphics infographic, unemployment

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would have us take a look at the job losses as report by the BLS, and correlate them with the President of the United States. From the bar chart to the right, one could mistakenly make the case that President Bush caused all the job losses, and President Obama has stopped the job losses. While some of the policies of the Bush administration may have caused the Great Recession, that same administration also enacted policies to stabilize the economy and to stop job losses before President Obama was ever elected. Likewise, once President Obama was in office, he enacted or continued similar policies. Both policies took time to take effect, and it just so happens that the peak of job losses coincided with President Obama’s inauguration. We have often said here that “Correlation does not imply Causation”. What we mean by that statement is that just because two events occur simultaneously, it does not follow that one event causes the other event.

via : CHART OF THE DAY

Graphics infographic, unemployment

Bloomberg has an interactive graphic showing that more jobs were lost during the recession than was previously thought. Every month the government releases unemployment numbers. In those numbers are a estimate of the number of jobs created and number of jobs lost. This is called the Birth/Death model. The Birth/Death model for all of 2009, with the exception of January’s numbers, showed jobs being created even during the middle of a recession. The January unemployment report, which will be released on Friday at 7:30 EST, will contain revisions to the Birth/Death model. This revision is not unexpected since it happens every year. For the past six months, the U.S. government has been saying that they will have to revise the numbers with 824,000 jobs being lost.

The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time.

via : U.S. May Lose 824,000 Jobs as Employment Data Revised

Graphics employment, infographic, unemployment

Slate has taken the Local Area Unemployment Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to create an information visualization showing the jobs lost over the past two years. Blue circles indicate that jobs were gained. Red circles indicate that jobs were lost. The size of the circle indicates the magnitude of change. The visualization is interactive. It allows you to either play through the timeline, or you can click on a certain month to see the data. The problem with such visualizations is that entire states disappear from view under the data. I personally prefer the way Flowing Data used the counties in their visualization instead of using circles. Unfortunately, Flowing Data’s visualization is not interactive like Slate’s.

via Slate: When Did Your County’s Jobs Disappear?

Science economic, infographic, infovis, unemployment, us