Advanced Tools

Welcome to the Payroll Employment Game Advanced Tools

Now that you have played the game a few times, you might want to drill a bit deeper.

Once you've played our game, please consider helping others by sharing your experience on our comment page.

In the Basic Game, there is a number that we have established (based upon a reliable forecast, unknown to the players) to be the actual one-month job growth in the economy. You cannot change this value. In this Advanced Tools version, however, you can set the 'true' job growth to whatever you want (within reasonable limits). Enter this value below ('True change'). For example, enter '100' if you think the true change will be an increase of 100,000 jobs. You do NOT know, however, what BLS will report as the estimated job growth this month. Click "BLS" to find out what BLS might report as the estimated change in jobs from last month to this month, consistent with the data you have entered.

Last month total nonfarm jobs (seasonally adjusted) (x 1,000) :

True change in jobs (x 1,000) from last month to this month. You have the power to know this:

Optional: Make a guess about the next BLS estimate of change in jobs (x 1,000) last month to this month:

Click 'BLS' to find out the 'actual' BLS estimate of change in jobs (x 1,000) last month to this month consistent with the information above:

In real life, BLS makes only one employment report each month. What if you could make them do it again? That is, go back in time, draw a different sample, conduct a different study, analyze it and make the estimate. Go ahead, click "BLS" again to find another possible estimate for month-to-month change in employment, consistent with the information above. The graph below shows the distribution of alternate employment change estimates BLS could have made. Or click 'Get More' (below) to see 25 more BLS estimates all at once. Do it again.

If you click 'Get More' a dozen times or so, you should see a frequency distribution of possible BLS estimates clustered around the 'True change' you selected above. Approximately two-thirds of the values will be within plus or minus 60 (or +/- 60,000 jobs) of the value you chose as the 'True change'. Approximately 90% of the values will be within +/- 99 (+/- 99,000 jobs) of the value you chose as the 'True change'.

So, what's really happening here? If you click 'Get More' a dozen times or so, you will be looking at the theoretical sampling distribution of month-to-month job change, given knowledge of the 'True change' you entered and the standard error (60 or 60,000 jobs) for this particular study. (Well, a peek at the sampling distribution. The real one has an infinite number of possible sample values.) For more information have a look at the Game Technical Notes.
















We have studied this at length and our team has played the game hundreds of times. We have our conclusions, but we are interested in YOURS! Please send us feedback about your experience. Let us know if you are willing to be quoted on our comment page, using a pseudonym if you wish. Thanks for playing!