Moneybox: The Winter of Our Content

Now playing: Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V at www.slatev.com.
Moneybox The Winter of Our Content How this winter's unseasonably warm weather jump-started job creation. By Matthew Yglesias Posted Wednesday, Mar 28, 2012, at 05:37 PM ET Everyone likes a mild winter, but perhaps no one likes it more than President Obama. A recent Macro Musings newsletter from the respected forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers suggested that warm weather in December, January, and February added 72,000 extra jobs to the U.S. economy. This report helps explain one of Recovery Winter's minor puzzles: Why did the economy add an unusually high level of jobs relative to very modest growth in GDP? But it also leaves us with a question: If unseasonable weather boosted winter job growth, would a return to normal this spring undo those gains? Macroeconomic Advisors thinks it will, but there's reason to believe they're wrong. It's no secret that the economy is seasonal, in part for weather reasons. Employment at ski resorts is obviously highest in the winter. Many businesses in beach and vacation communities keep longer hours during the summer. That means part-time employees start working full-time, and new workers get hired to fill the needed shifts. These sorts of issues, along with the predictable Christmas retail cycle, are at the core of the "seasonal adjustments" that the Bureau of Labor Statistics applies to jobs data.  According to the BLS, for example, more than 2 million fewer people were working in January 2012 than in December 2011 which was reported in the press as a hiring surge of 284,000 new jobs. The discrepancy between the numbers discussed in the press and the actual reality is the result ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Want To Know What Google's Up To Next? Look at the 25 Companies It Bought Last Year. How the Political Operative Became the Hero of the Modern Campaign The Greatest Dystopian Campaign Ads of the Last 50 Years	Advertisement
Manage your newsletters subscription: Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information
Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com. Copyright 2011 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036