Goldman shreds ABS Numberwang

Friday 19 February 2016

Last night, ABC’s The Business ran a segment on the ABS’s jobs numberwang, whereby economists cast doubt on the bullishness of the ABS’ jobs data, with one commentator – Alistair Walters from the CPSU – noting that when the ABS changed its methodology, it was unable to do a parallel survey to cross-check its data for accuracy because of Budget cuts.

Still, David Kalisch, the Australian Statistician, stood buy the veracity of the figures, claiming the following on The Business last night:

“Well Australians can be confident about the quality and integrity of our labour force estimates. The ABS has been producing these numbers for the last 50 years, and we have been testing and refining those systems and processes over that time”.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.