Mine Unemployment Reports for More than Just Numbers

By Vandana Sinha
July 14, 2005 03:50 PM

The stories that readers care about most are often not the stories that reporters got into business journalism to do.

 

Take unemployment stories for example. They're dry and infested with statistics. But they also speak of salaries, careers and livelihoods.

 

So our mission is to avoid the dryness and infestation, and instead tell stories about the local job market that would hook day laborer and policymaker alike.

 

To do that, business reporters must mine those monthly reports for more than a mere rate. And they must let real people, not just the numbers, do the talking.

 

"You're in danger of anesthetizing the audience unless you come up with something interesting," warns Robert Manor, a business reporter for The Chicago Tribune.

 

Two strong antidotes to that potential anesthesia when it comes to unemployment stories: questioning numbers and giving larger context.

 

Writing intelligently about unemployment figures takes knowing how they were produced in the first place. George Avalos, a Contra Costa Times business reporter, broke down the process in his last story, now a handy primer for other reporters who might get the Bureau of Labor Statistics report dropped on their desk the first Friday of next month. 

 

That monthly report's seemingly uniform charts are actually telling you two entirely different things: what more than 400,000 companies say about their workers' status, hours and pay, and what roughly 60,000 people who pick up the phone at home say about their current job status.

 

The former is an establishment survey of businesses, which hand state agencies their payroll records. The latter is a household survey of residents, essentially a collection of phone interviews. And the former has been a lot more pessimistic about the job market than the latter so far this decade.

 

"There have been explanations for it that over time don't hold water," Avalos says. "The surveys are still in divergence."

 

So he gave some explanations in his story -- the lack of reporting for illegal immigrant workers, self-employed workers or those who report to small or startup companies, all issues of particular interest to Californians as well.

 

Manor wonders about the folks who aren't home when BLS calls. Or others who don't own a phone. Or others who don't own up to the truth. "There's a lot of complexity to that number. I have serious doubts about its accuracy," he says. "I think a fair number of people won't answer the question because they're embarrassed at not having a job."

 

So don't take the report's assumptions at face value. Understand its methodology and limitations. If you do, then your readers will too.

 

Next, take into account everything but the unemployment rate. That's not the sole definition of the nation's economy, so your stories shouldn't suggest that.

 

Look at productivity numbers, and what they mean for work hours. Look at consumer confidence and retail sales, and what they mean for spending patterns. Look at interest rates, and what they mean for loans and home and car sales. Look at inflation rates -- through the consumer's and producer's eyes -- and what they mean for salaries and the cost of meat and potatoes. Sometimes the rest of these numbers are the meat and potatoes of your unemployment story.

 

"It's not just a jobs report. It's a very fleeting picture of a big part of the American economy," Manor explains. "It can't be done on the basis of two pages and two columns. You've got to think about the larger view of what that means."

 

That's context. And that's especially necessary for stories on the macroeconomics of unemployment.

 

Then there's the micro level. The everyday person's voice that is so often silenced, and yet is the soul of these stories. The person who's just lost a job and is terrified, or who's just found one and is jubilant. Joblessness stories aren't about monthly figures. They're about human ones.

 

Avalos suggests going to temp agencies and local employment commissions, and asking for folks who request a job or attend their seminars. Manor suggests asking for three folks, so you can choose their best story for yours.

 

In his story for The Tribune, Manor chatted with a laid-off, middle-aged IT professional who went from an $80,000 annual salary to a $9.50-an-hour UPS job sorting packages -- until an injury ended that too. That man's story will stick with readers for much longer than the economist's absolutely necessary, but probably lackluster, quote.

 

And while the experts -- rightly called economists and econ professors -- are invaluable for these stories, search for sources a few degrees of separation away. Who else bears the brunt of sluggish job growth? Maybe the local subway system, downtown parking garages or fast food places within walking distance of shrinking companies.

 

Avalos might pick up the phone to call a manager from the local commercial real estate company or bank to take the pulse of the economy. "If there's a lot of business activity, the bank tends to do more lending," he says.

 

Sometimes, your best sources need not speak. Manor did a walking sweep of "Help Wanted" signs along a busy Chicago strip for his story, then talked to store managers that sported one.

 

Even the best-told, 25-page Labor Department stat-filled press release will miss that.

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism