Jack Welch strongly implied on Twitter Friday that the September and October jobs reports were overly optimistic to help President Barack Obama get reelected.
Welch, the former longtime General Electric CEO, became notorious for implying on Twitter in October that Obama's presidential campaign had influenced the Bureau of Labor Statistics' September jobs report to make the economy look strong. He wrote at the time:
A number of prominent conservatives, including Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), echoed his claim, while many observers on Twitter mocked him. Welch later denied referencing the White House.
The November jobs report, which was released on Friday -- the first jobs report since the election -- had a lot of statistical noise because of Hurricane Sandy, according to some economists and economics journalists.
The results were better than expected: The BLS reported that the economy added 146,000 jobs in November, far more than the average of 85,000 jobs forecast by economists. But much of the job growth was in low-wage fields, and the labor market still has a long way to go before fully healing.
Though Welch cast doubt on the BLS' revisions of the September and October jobs reports, it usually revises its recent jobs reports to include late sample reports. The BLS surveys a random sample of 60,000 households and 140,000 businesses every month, and accounts for late responses through revisions.
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