Job Openings and Labor Turnover Report

Here's the two reasonably readable graphs from this morning's JOLT (Job Openings and Labor Turnover) report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Looks like there has been a moderately strong trend at work in the job openings picture for the past 3 years.



As has been typical in the BLS formal reports like this, the time span is too short to be able to place recent behavior in context and the number of factors shown in visual form is far too few to fully grasp what is going on in the world of employment.

In the full monthly report itself which runs to 15 pages, there are numerous tables with literally hundreds of important factors. Unfortunately, these covering an even shorter two year time period with even fewer sample trend sample points per factor. This again matches the current BLS standard not-particularly-reader-friendly approach for their "printed" reports.

In my view, this standard BLS approach is far from the best way to present important trend data. All the time consuming work of searching for and extracting meaning is left to reader (which means in most cases it will never happen) or it is left to the expert pundits who will typically comment on a few of the sub factors that they find most interesting and perhaps present one or two charts.

Of course, back at the BLS web site, just about all the trend data for all the factors for all the time periods is available for those who have the time and skill to track it down.

Top 12 factors (one citizen's view)

Here's an even shorter list of what I consider to be the top 12 factors to watch right now.

This does not mean that we should only look at this subset. In my opinion, every item on the previous post's list of 34 is of high importance and worthy of being measured, tracked, and reported consistently in near real time.

In fact, while perhaps of not as high importance (and opinions will of course vary on this), almost every item on the list of 142 deserves regular attention - measurement, tracking, and reporting - so that the full picture can be brought into view.

From the Brookings Iraq Index Report

• Iraqi Deaths from All Violent Causes

U.S Dept. of State's Iraq Weekly Status Report (30 pages, January 10, 2007).

• Crude oil production

5 trend graphs drawn from Iraq Coalition Casualties

• US Soldiers Killed with moving avg & event timing - March 2003 - December 30, 2006
• US Soldiers Wounded with moving avg - Sept 6, 2003 - Dec 29, 2006

from Michael O'Hanlon's testimony. 30 factors

• Daily Average of Inter-ethnic Attacks
• Avg Hours/Day of Power Baghdad (prewar 20)
• Unemployment Rate (%)

Additional factors (missing metrics) contained in the text of O'Hanlon's testimony

• Rate of Jobs Creation

55 missing metrics/invisible indicators/faceless factors from Brookings Iraq Index

• Iraqis Kidnapped in Baghdad (table page 15)
• Number of total daily patrols (chart page 23)
• People with potable water (table page 42)
• Percentage of Iraqis who strongly oppose presence of Coalition troops (table page 51)

What does your short list look like?

First cut at identifying most important factors

Here's one private citizen's view on which of the 142 Iraq factors identified so far are most vital to understanding what is happening on the ground in Iraq. These are the ones that I believed need to be measured and reported on regularly so we can see the trends at work. I have picked 34 out of 142 (or about 24% of the total) so this is something like an 80/20 selection.

What does your list look like?

It would be excellent to see Michael O'Hanlon's list, or Anthony Cordesman's list, or Secretary Gate's list, or Secretary Rice's list, or Lt. Gen. Petraeus' list of the top factors they will be considering as we go forward.

From the Brookings Iraq Index Report

• Average Weekly Attacks by Time Period – 01 Jan 2004 – 11 Aug 2005
• Iraqi Deaths from All Violent Causes – Jan 06- Oct 06
• Enemy-Initiated Attacks Against the Coalition and its Partners May 2003 –Aug 2006

U.S Dept. of State's Iraq Weekly Status Report (30 pages, January 10, 2007).

• Crude oil production for the past 10 weeks.
• Electricity production compared to electricity demand since January 2004.

5 trend graphs drawn from Iraq Coalition Casualties

• US Soldiers Killed with moving avg & event timing - March 2003 - December 30, 2006
• US Soldiers Wounded with moving avg - Sept 6, 2003 - Dec 29, 2006

from Michael O'Hanlon's testimony. 30 factors

• Estimated Strength of Insurgency
• Estimated Strength of Shia Militias
• Daily Average of Inter-ethnic Attacks
• Iraqi Security Forces who are Politically Dependable
• Percent of Household Fuel Needs Available
• Avg Hours/Day of Power Baghdad (prewar 20)
• Unemployment Rate (%)

New indicators calculated from combinations of O'Hanlon's metrics

• total number of Iraqi Physicians who have murdered, kidnapped, or who have left Iraq.
• percent of coalition troops that are not US troops
• Percent of US troops killed by IEDs
• Year over year increase in Iraqi refugees

Additional factors (missing metrics) contained in the text of O'Hanlon's testimony

• Rate of Shia attacks on Sunnis
• Rate of Sunni attacks on Shia
• The number of children being immunized.
• Rate of Jobs Creation
• Degree of Overwork of our Soldiers and Marines

55 missing metrics/invisible indicators/faceless factors from Brookings Iraq Index

• Civilian deaths in Baghdad (page 12 table)
• Iraqis Kidnapped in Baghdad (table page 15)
• Iraqi prison population in US Custody (table page 16)
• Iraqi prison population in Iraqi Custody (table page 16)
• Number of total daily patrols (chart page 23)
• Gasoline/Benzene production (table page 29)
• Total cost of US operations (table page 37)
• People with potable water (table page 42)
• People with sewerage system coverage (table page 42)
• High School enrollment percentage (table page 43)
• Percentage of Iraqis who strongly oppose presence of Coalition troops (table page 51)