by Calculated Risk on 7/05/2016 02:53:00 PM

A large number of Verizon workers went on strike on April 13th, and returned to work on June 1st.

What will be the impact on the June employment report?

These workers were on strike during the reference period in May and were not be counted as employed in May.  Since the strike is over, they will be counted as employed in the June 2016 report.

According to the BLS report on Strikes occurring during CES survey reference period, 35,100 Verizon workers were on strike in May.

The BLS reported a loss of 37,200 thousand workers in May in the Information Super Sector under the Telecommunications Industry.

If the employment report shows a gain of 35,000 to 37,000 telecommunications workers (SA), then it will be reasonable to subtract those from the headline employment number to look at the underlying trend.

As an example, if the BLS reports 160,000 jobs added in June, and 35,000 telecommunication jobs gained in June, the underlying trend would be 125,000.