Gallup Unemployment Rate Spikes from 7.9% to 8.9% in 20 Days! Sampling Error or Seasonal Effect?

 

Inquiring minds note the steady rise all month in Gallup’s Daily Employment Survey.

7.9% August 1-2
8.0% August 3-6
8.1% August 8-8
8.2% August 9-11
8.3% August 12
8.4% August 13-16
8.6% August 17-18
8.8% August 19
8.9% August 20

Is This a Seasonal Effect? That’s quite a trend. The unemployment rate steadily rose a full percentage point in a mere 20 days.

Gallup notes “Because results are not seasonally adjusted, they are not directly comparable to numbers reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which are based on workers 16 and older. Margin of error is ±1 percentage point.“ My first inclination was the rise was part of a seasonal trend.
However, “each result is based on a 30-day rolling average; not seasonally adjusted“. To see if this was part of a normal seasonal trend, I downloaded the data which dates back to 2010. Let’s take a look at an apples-to-apples comparison of August 2013 vs. August in prior years to eliminate any seasonal bias.

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