Is Labor Dept. Using Storm To Delay Poor Job Numbers?

Posted by Brian
Coming off a September jobs report that showed unemployment dropped to 7.8%, which was heralded by those on the left as proof that Obama has the country on the right track, comes the news that the Labor Department may "delay" the release of the October jobs' number. Is the regime now using Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to delay the jobs report until after the election?
Soundly panned by those on the right as trickery, the September jobs report had business people and economists all over the country flummoxed.  How could an increase of a mere 114K jobs move the unemployment number from 8.1%  to 7.8%. The answer, of course, is that more people dropped out of the workforce than were employed, thus decreasing the total number of persons counted in their calculations. Over the last year alone, over 1.1 MILLION people have dropped out of the workforce, thus are not being counted. If the same number of people were still being counted in the workforce as when Obama took office, the unemployment number would be around 10.7%.
Trying to ride the "encouraging" September jobs report,  the Obama campaign would be hurt by a poor jobs report just a week before the election.   Hurricane Sandy provides a timely excuse to delay a poor jobs report until after people have cast their ballots.
How convenient!

Labor Department Says No Decision Yet on Whether to Delay Jobs Report
By Eric Morath

The Labor Department said Monday that it has yet to make a decision on whether to delay Friday’s closely-watched October employment report due to the effects from Hurricane Sandy.

Federal government offices in Washington are closed Monday and may be shut again Tuesday due to the storm. It isn’t clear if the closure would cause a delay in processing the data.

“We will assess the situation when the weather emergency is over and notify the press and public of any changes at that time,” said Gary Steinberg, spokesman for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the data arm of the department.

The Labor Department is also scheduled to release its third quarter employment cost index Wednesday, and the third quarter productivity and weekly jobless claims reports Thursday.
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