A report Friday sent contradictory signaꦛls about the job market, showing the economy was both gaining and losing jobs—thanks to a quirk in the way the g🧔overnment gathers data.

Employers added a surprisingly high 339,000 jobs in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, showing the job market is picking up steam. The very same report showed the unemployment rate going up to 3.7% from 3.4%. 

The discrepancy is possible because despite being in the same rep🦹ort, the bureau actually uses two different surveys to report the jobs level and the unemployment rate. 

Every month, the bureau asks about 122,000 employers how many people they hired, and how many quit or were laid off. This “establishment survey” produces the widely reported number about 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询ꦑ:how ꦓmany jobs the economy gained or lost. At the same time, they survey 60,000 households, asking people about their work and job search activities. This is the source of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the unemployment rate. The two surveys often tell similar stories about how well the labor market is doing, but it’s not uncommon for them to diverge, maki🧸ng it challenging for economists to interpret the signals. 

Fܫor example, the establishment survey showed the number of jobs rising 0.2% in May🦩, while the household survey showed the opposite, a 0.2% drop.

So, Which Data Should You Believe?

“Companies are reporting a jobs surge in May, yet households are telling us employment plunged. Who to believe?” James Knightley, chief international economist at ING said in a commentary Friday. “Pick which survey you prefer and react accordingly.”

Experts usually pay closer attention to the employer survey because the household survey is pron𓃲e to showing bigger swings up and down in the number of jobs. However, the household survey has its advantages. 

“The employer survey is usually a more accurate reflection of the job market given its much larger sample size,” Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Bank said in a commentary. “That being said⛄, the divergence between ꦯthe two surveys in May is unusually large. The household survey may also be better at capturing turning points in the economy.”

A key difference between the two surveys is that the household survey measures self-employed workers, while the establishment survey does not. The number of self-employed workers fell by 369,000 in May, the survey showed. That largely accounted for the discrepancy, economists at Bank of America said in an analysis.