Media wrong on unemployment, again

I know it's not news that people writing for the 'mainstream' media these days either can't read or don't bother to do any research. I know it's not all their fault. If readers pay for sensation rather than sense, that's all the newspapers and TV need give them. But…

Just for the record: the ABC (in this case, expect the same elsewhere) has the story on the ABS unemployment data wrong again. They express breathless surprise on the mid-day news that the rate of unemployment fell last month:

"Australia's official jobless rate fell to 5.4 per cent in April, bucking recent job loss trends and confounding the expectations of most economists." Extract from ABC News

So they should be surprised: because the most meaningful expression of unemployment trends did not fall, according to the ABS. It went up.

All the journalists have to do is to read the ABS release. It's right there on the top: the third line in the Key Figures. The trend rate shows an increase from 5.4% to 5.5% over the month of April.

Thank God! Now all those confounded economists can relax! The trend rate in unemployment is not paradoxical and (still) not alarming.

Why should the ABC (and others) be using the trend rate rather than the volatile 'seasonally adjusted' number? Here's the explanation I offered last time, drawing on the information that the ABS provides in its easily understood releases.

Tags for this entry: statistics unemployment