Gov. Bev. Perdue continues to blame North Carolina’s high unemployment rate on a loss of government jobs resulting from budget cuts by the Republican-led General Assembly. Perdue may be right, but the official information provided by the state’s Employment Security Commission doesn’t back up her claims.

Perdue hinted at large government job losses this spring. At a Democratic fundraiser in April, Perdue suggested that the state budget proposed by GOP leaders would lead to massive layoffs — perhaps 30,000 in all sectors of government and 18,000 in education alone.

Speaking to a group of economic developers Sept. 19 in Charlotte, Perdue claimed that “much” of North Carolina’s 10.4 percent unemployment rate was due to job losses in the public sector, according to a WSOC-TV report. At a Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce lunch the next day, Perdue said a recent jump in the state’s unemployment rate occurred because of public sector job losses, the Daily Reflector reported.

But the monthly employment numbers released a few days earlier by the ESC showed a different picture. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate did “jump” from 10.1 percent in July to 10.4 percent in August. Yet ESC also reported a seasonally adjusted net increase of 13,600 government jobs.

At a minimum, it is premature to make any conclusions about a purported relationship between government job levels, the unemployment rate, and the state budget. Because of quirks in the seasonal adjustment methodology, ESC could report a gain of seasonally adjusted government jobs in September. Such a report would not be an accurate accounting of public employment, but it would place Perdue and others who have been critical of the General Assembly in a rhetorical bind.

Still, despite the lack of reliable numbers at present, Perdue spokesman Mark Johnson maintains that the GOP is to blame for massive job losses in the public sector.

“The Republican legislature’s shortsighted and unnecessary cuts resulted in the loss of thousands of education positions in K-12 and thousands more in the university system,” Johnson told Carolina Journal. “Common sense alone tells you that these job losses push up unemployment; if unaddressed, these losses will harm both our ability to sustain a well-trained workforce and to remain competitive in the global marketplace. It’s worth noting that since Jan. 1 the state has seen an increase of approximately 34,000 private sector jobs. Of course, Gov. Perdue won’t be satisfied until every North Carolinian who wants a job has one.”

Adjusting the numbers

ESC serves as the local agent for the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the employment estimates. The “seasonal adjustment” factor used by BLS for public education jobs in the summer, for instance, is little more than a guess. It’s an estimate based on observations from several recent years of the number of jobs that should exist if all schools remained open year-round and there were no summer break.

A more reliable way to look at public employment is to consider an actual count of jobs, the so-called not seasonally adjusted or unadjusted figure. Since the fiscal year began July 1, the ESC’s seasonally adjusted employment estimates show a net gain of 3,600 state and local government jobs. By contrast, the unadjusted jobs figure for local education has plummeted — from 229,100 in May to 132,300 in July. Such drops are typical in the summer when schools are out of session. The unadjusted jobs number rebounded to 189,300 in August and should rise even more when the September report is released Oct. 21.

ESC officials defend their approach. Agency spokesman Larry Parker told CJ that seasonally adjusted estimates are “accurate.” In a Sept. 16 interview with Raleigh television station WTVD, Deputy Chairman David Clegg said, “We are using the same methodology that’s been used for decades. We are looking at the same snapshot of North Carolina’s economy each and every month.”

ESC has been sharing the data from its monthly employment reports with the governor a day before the report is released to the public.

DPI and UNC report

A survey of the public school systems by the Department of Public Instruction, released in late August, showed 6,300 positions have been eliminated over the past four years — 3,900 of them in previous years when Democrats were in charge of the General Assembly and the governor’s office. Slightly more than 2,400 people have been let go since the current fiscal year opened in July.

A similar survey by the University of North Carolina system showed the elimination of 487 full-time filled positions, 2,544 filled part-time positions, and 1,487 unfilled positions. UNC-Charlotte and Elizabeth City State University reported zero reductions in filled full-time positions. UNC–Chapel Hill reported that it had eliminated 95 filled full-time positions.

If these surveys are accurate, education job losses would total roughly 6,000, rather than the 18,000 Perdue predicted.

Still, here’s no way of knowing whether these surveys would coincide with ESC data. School systems may count the elimination of unfilled positions in different ways. They may not distinguish between a count of employees and a count of jobs — and whether the jobs are filled or unfilled. ESC also emphasizes seasonally adjusted numbers in its monthly release rather the raw estimates.

The BLS raw count of government jobs in North Carolina drops by as much as 100,000 every summer, because most public school teacher jobs are not counted during the summer break.

ESC’s Parker told CJ that most economists would agree a more reliable method of measuring changes in government jobs would be to compare unadjusted employment numbers from September 2011 with those from September 2010.

The employment numbers come from two separate employment statistics programs managed by BLS. The unemployment rate comes from a U.S. Census Bureau national monthly survey for BLS of 60,000 households, with about 1,500 of them in North Carolina.

The count of jobs comes from the Current Employment Statistics program. It is based on a sample of private and government employers.

Don Carrington is executive editor of Carolina Journal.