More on "Jobs Saved"

Former colleague Victor Claar sent me a link to a news story about errors in the counting of saved jobs, including the treatment of raises as equivalent to saved jobs.

There is another dimension I had not considered as yet. There has been a disruptive construction project on an intersection in Holland through which I often drive. Signs indicated that funds came, at least in part, from the stimulus package. The firms that worked on the job then must estimate how many jobs the project saved or created. The project lasted three months. Will the companies report these jobs saved or created as if they were year-long jobs or will the length of the project be considered? In earlier blogs I wrote about how the methodology used by the government to estimate jobs created or saved focused on job-years. I believe the average citizen reading about jobs saved or created believes that the number of unemployed falls or at least doesn't increase by the number of jobs saved. But, that clearly is wrong, and there is really no way to tell by how much.