Days after the Patrick administration reported that the state added 12,200 jobs last year, or more than 30,000 fewer than initially reported, Senate Republicans on Tuesday called on Auditor Suzanne Bump to audit the methodology for determining state employment figures.
In a letter to Bump, the four-member Senate Republican caucus wrote, “Being able to accurately gauge the number of jobs being created on a monthly and yearly basis is crucial to determining how effective the state’s regulatory and tax policies are . . . “
The senators also referenced a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce report citing a 0.4 percent job growth rate in Massachusetts last year that was below the national job growth rate of 1.5 percent and alleged that the jobs picture in Massachusetts had been clouded by a “faulty means of counting” new jobs.
Patrick administration officials last week cast doubt on the revised figures they released, blaming the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics – which compiles the data – for applying an imprecise methodology that underreported the number of jobs the state actually added last year.
Jim Sibley, chief of the Boston branch of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, defended the agency’s methodology, describing to the News Service a detailed, complex formula that officials use to estimate job levels and the unemployment rate.
He said the bureau’s new methodology is meant to eliminate “noise” and “sampling error” that results when extrapolating jobs data.
Bump aides were not immediately available to respond to the request for an audit.