Figure 2. The like-for-like check
Six fields to match before comparing two official employment numbers, with the mismatch each field prevents.
| Field to carry | Question to ask | A mismatch can create |
|---|---|---|
| Series identity and definition | Is this the same series, scope, geography and industry definition? | A resemblance in labels between different populations or reconstructed categories |
| Reference period | Do both values describe the same month or the same change interval? | A release-date comparison mistaken for an event-date comparison |
| Value and units | Is this a level, a monthly change, a percentage, an index or a revision amount? | Arithmetic across unlike quantities |
| Adjustment status | Are both values seasonally adjusted, or both not seasonally adjusted? | A difference caused by separate seasonal processing |
| Vintage or release date | What information was available at each publication date? | Hindsight carried into a real-time evaluation |
| Revision stage | First, second or third estimate, preliminary or final benchmark, or reconstruction? | An ordinary process stage described as a new real-world event |
- Does not prove
- That a comparison is useful or that the source series is free of error.
- Scope
- One proposed reporting check for official employment estimates.
- Units
- None across the figure; the value row requires the units the source declares.
- Denominator
- Not applicable. The six rows are reporting fields, not sampled observations.
- Date
- Proposed 1 October 2026 from sources observed the same day.
- Transformation
- Qualitative mapping from each field to the mismatch it prevents. No score, ranking, weight or pooled metric is computed.
- Uncertainty
- The checklist has not been tested as a reader-comprehension tool and may need additions for other statistics.
- Limitations
- It checks whether two values describe the same thing. It does not judge estimator quality, cause or policy meaning.
Sources
- CES Frequently Asked Questions. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Publication date unavailable; observed 2026-10-01.
- CES Vintage Data Information. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Publication date unavailable; observed 2026-10-01.
- Nonfarm Payroll Employment: Revisions between over-the-month estimates, 1979-present. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Publication date unavailable; observed 2026-10-01.
- CES Industry Classification Overview. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Publication date unavailable; observed 2026-10-01.
- Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Publication date unavailable; observed 2026-10-01.
- A Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists. Dean Croushore and Tom Stark, Journal of Econometrics 105(1), pages 111 to 130. Publication date unavailable; observed 2026-10-01.