As Dr Norman told you last night, he was using filled jobs rather than FTE. In that case the 40000 figure is pretty obvious from the data: http://www.stats.govt.nz/infoshare/ViewTable.aspx?pxID=93fe83c1-0cda-4041-9445-456e1bf460ac

When I saw that the difference between 2008Q2 and 2012Q3 reported FTE was exactly 40000, I assumed that that was where he got the number. I’m sorry for causing confusion on that account.

“Cherry picking” though is a weasel word in this context, because, firstly, Norman’s statement was headed up “manufacturing languishes under four years of National’ and then says “There’s no signs of clawing back any of the 40,000 jobs lost in the manufacturing sector since 2008.”

Question: would anyone else, reading this, not presume the 40,000 jobs was since the change of government?

I genuinely want an answer to that question, by the way.

Anyway, I started trying to find the 40,000. And I couldn’t find them.

If Norman’s statement had said “since June 2008 – oh and, until Q3 last year even though there’s been two sets of updated data since then” I would have – but then I would also pointed out Norman was deliberately using outdated data and ignoring the more recent data.

And I would have used the term “misleading” to describe it, because it would have been misleading.

The bigger issue here is this: something Matt touched on – politicians misusing data.

In this case, its been used to talk up a “crisis” that isn’t.

NZ has a horrible tendency to conduct economic arguments in apocalyptic doom and gloom tones and it is extraordinarily damaging.

I lived through a lot of it in the 1970s-90s and its is corrosive and destructive – and, when politicians do it, shallow and irresponsible.

It contributed, I believe, to a sense of despair about this country’s prospects.

It really fires me up when I see politicians (and other commentators) doing it.

By all means, discuss how you would change the policy settings, regulate or tax differently, and why – all that.

But don’t manufacture crises which aren’t there: don’t magnify our difficulties.

This is a superb idea.

That would be fantastic.

Fair enough.

I’ll be honest that I’m not really about the politics of it all. I just want to know why the change happened and what it means.

Would be neat if, like, all the “finance ministers” had to write a (say) 4,000 word essay (with graphs) to discuss the economy over the last decade. With something like that, it would be easier to see what the different political parties mean when they discuss things!

The difference between 2008Q2 and 2012Q3 in the QES is 40,000. If Rob wants to argue that that’s cherry picking and that the last 17 quarters are a more appropriate measure then that’s fine. But instead he’s accused Dr Norman of making up numbers.

I don’t think that is really fair on Rob – I don’t think he is being dishonest at all. If the claim from the Greens is truly based on the last 17 quarters, and if they are only using the QES as they are worried about data issues with the HLFS (following the earthquake say), then Rob has found that the figure is not 40k. In that case, saying it is 40k when it isn’t is just “making it up”.

Journalists, and economists, tend to get annoyed by people with vested interests misusing data – and so I fully appreciate his sentiment. I posted here, not in response to his article itself, but just when I saw others stating that a 40k figure was just a lie in general. Hence why I popped up a graph that gave it some context, in terms of a measure that I view as a bit more appropriate (although I am then talking about employment numbers rather than “jobs” in that context) 🙂

So, in your NBR story, when you say “Dr Norman is just making numbers up”, you _knew_ that they actually came from the QES? That really is astoundingly dishonest.

Cheers, as I noted at the end in terms of your actual piece I appreciated the longer term structural focus you had going – it is an important point that is forgotten!

In Infoshare the series I was using was:

Persons
Employed by Sex by Industry, ANZSIC06 (Qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)

Total Both Sexes

Manufacturing

And given I was working off the Whale Oil post, rather than a comparison to governments, I just went from the “peak” in Mar-05. It makes sense, as it was at this point a lot of factors combined which would have been expected to “boost the real exchange rate” … which is the path we are looking at in terms of causation!

Of course, what would be best is if we could just look at the LEED data – that kicks the HLFS employment and QES jobs data out of the water in terms of accuracy. Just not timely.