The interesting question is whether this is just a soon to be revised blip on the road to full employment or if this is a harbinger of another spring-summer slowdown after a promising fall and winter. Last year showed a definite V shape in job growth as did 2011 to a lesser extent.
In the comments on a subsequent post about bad thesis advisors, I was excoriated for the above statement as follows:
its bogus (because with one reference - one's own eyes - it clearly is bogus). I'm not sure macro is much better than literary theory
OK. So I took the jobs numbers for 2011 and 2012, averaged them by month and plotted the monthly averages. Here's what I got:
Sweet fancy Moses. As I live and breathe, it's a V-SHAPED CYCLE.
Take THAT literary theorists.
Let me see you average Derrida and Foucault by month and get such a nice looking V out of it.
Macro rules.
4 comments:
You deploy narrative strategies that gesture towards the discourse of the Oppressor. For shame!
I just want to point out that this data (average of 2011 and 2012) is significantly different than the data shown in the original post. That data, and the comment upon which I focused, was very definitely for 2011 and 2012 taken as different data sets.
And even with this data set, it seems that it is mid-fall through mid-winter and not winter through early spring where the most robust hiring happens (and I point this out because of your comment on my comment on the original post).
And, there still isn't an absolute value fitted to this! For this data set, the equation would be something like: y = |a*x - 7| + 115 and you only have to fit one variable (a, the slope; which you can estimate to be about 20). See what r^2 is. (And if you don't like the pesky -7 hanging out inside the absolute value brackets, then just shift the data so that it is centered on July.) Is it actually V shaped or is it just wishful thinking and story telling?
My original point was nothing more than: if you're going to get on somebody else's case for not being quantitative or precise, then you had probably better be precise yourself. Maybe I missed the point of the post on literary theory. If so, I have made a grave mistake and I apologize.
No matter what, I want to sincerely apologize for any angst or offense that I may have caused in my original comment or email. I do love this blog. It's one of the best and that's why I cared to make what I believed to be an important observation. Again, I apologize if I overstepped my role as a reader.
To some extent, we've seen this pattern the last four years. It almost makes me wonder if the particular seasonal adjustments are no longer valid.
I agree John. It's pretty weird.
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