Per Bureau of Labor Statistics May 8, 2020,
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm :
In April the employment-to-population ratio is the lowest since records of that began in January 1948 (72 years ago)
Ditto the unemployment rate (except it is at the highest, not the lowest, since that seasonally adjusted series began in January 1948)
Also, the Bureau of Labor Statistics admits the
official unemployment rate is almost 5 percentage points higher than the 14.7% reported due to classification errors of some of the household survey interviewers (
making it close to 20%)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
As was the case in March, special instructions sent to household survey
interviewers called for all employed persons absent from work due to coronavirus-related business
closures to be classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. However, it is apparent that not all
such workers were so classified.
If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to "other reasons" (over
and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical April) had been classified as unemployed
on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been almost 5 percentage points higher
than reported (on a not seasonally adjusted basis). However, according to usual practice, the data
from the household survey are accepted as recorded. To maintain data integrity, no ad hoc actions
are taken to reclassify survey responses.
And the April numbers come from a sample week of April 12-18. Many more millions of jobs were lost since then, according to the weekly new unemployment claims reports
Putting all of the above together, it is a virtual certainty that the unemployment rate was over 20% at the end of April.
As for the nonfarm payrolls job number being down 20.5 million in April -- that's from a different survey, the Establishment Survey. The key thing to know about that survey is that it is based on pay periods that include the 12th (some employers pay monthly but most pay every 2 weeks, some pay weekly). Anyway, most of that missed the further job losses that occurred in the second half of April.
More Details:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=581690
progree (7,880 posts) 
12 replies
Employment-to-population ratio the lowest its ever been - statistics begin Jan. 1948
