The Transcript of “Employment Statistics with John Williams” is now available to Subscribers!
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From the transcript:
C. Austin Fitts: It’s my pleasure to welcome to The Solari Report, a man who certainly needs no introduction among our subscribers but is very widely known, admired, and, I would say, deeply appreciated for his work with statistics. You can’t possibly understand the economy if you depend on the official statistics; they have veered progressively further and further away from reality.
John Williams has a wonderful company. I’m a subscriber, and have been for many years. It’s called ShadowStats, and it is the premier website for hard information on the real facts of the economy. In anticipation of some of the things happening in the employment sector, John has agreed to join us today to brief us on the employment statistics, what’s really happening with employment in North America and what that means to the economy. So, John, welcome to The Solari Report.
John Williams: Well, thank you, Catherine, and thank you for having me.
C. Austin Fitts: I watch, very faithfully, your chart that’s up on your website at shadowstats.com, of the unemployment rate. Tell us what’s been happening with employment statistics recently, and then let’s track back as to how the official numbers got so far away from the real numbers.
John Williams: Well, I publish an estimate of unemployment that I’ll contend is very close to what is common experience; the way people used to view employment. If you were to go around the country and ask everyone whether or not he or she was employed or unemployed, you’d get a very direct answer. The average person doesn’t have to think much about that. The problem is: the government has a very set definition of employment that the average person doesn’t recognize, so that when you see a number such as the one we just got for February, of headline unemployment at 6.7 percent, although it was up a notch for the first time in some time, most people would think that the unemployment rate is much higher than that, and for common experience, it is.
