The Sky Did Not Fall in August

US jobs figures reassuring - Financial Times - MSNBC.com Sometimes I wish people would learn to understand statistics, their meaning and limitations. It doesn't seem likely.

The PRELIMINARY jobs report for August showed a decline in jobs of 4000. This was just revised to a gain of 89,000. Quite a difference. The big change was in public school employment and the big change was in the start of the school year. Texas mandated a start no earlier than August 27, and Florida August 21. This changed the school employment numbers in August from a loss of 28,000 to a gain of 50,000.

When the preliminary numbers were announced in September (for August) the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 250 points. They are call preliminary for a reason.

We now know that the labour market was in better shape than we thought going into the credit squeeze and absorbed the initial impact well, with 89,000 job gains in August (revised up from minus 4,000) and 110,000 in September.
...
The labour market has softened since the early summer. Third-quarter job creation averaged 97,000 a month - a fraction below the 100,000 to 120,000 range most Federal Reserve policymakers view as consistent with steady unemployment. Second-quarter job creation averaged 126,000 a month.

Hardly the makings of a recession.