(Updates with additional details from Labor Department)
By Brian Blackstone
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Labor Department said Wednesday details from Friday's November employment report were released about one-half minute before their embargoed release time by one wire service.
The Labor Department, which declined to identify the news agency, said the release was accidental and the result of a recent technical change to computer hardware.
"This problem is being corrected, and we are taking all appropriate steps to safeguard sensitive data and prevent this from happening again," the Labor Department said in a joint statement from Keith Hall, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and David James, assistant secretary of Labor for public affairs.
The department also said a revision to third-quarter productivity released Dec. 3 was transmitted inadvertently by the same news wire about three and a half minutes ahead of the 8:30 a.m. EST embargo time.
Last month's employment report was one of the most highly anticipated data releases in many years, as economists try to assess the depth of the U.S. recession. The report showed a stunning 533,000 decline in nonfarm payrolls, a much higher drop than Wall Street had expected. Indeed, in testimony to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee after release of the jobs data Friday, Hall called the November report "maybe one of the worst jobs reports that...the Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever produced." The 30-year U.S. Treasury bond, which is sensitive to economic and inflation data, rose in price in the seconds before the official release time Friday. Treasury securities were mixed in volatile trading after the 8:30 a.m. EST public release of the employment data.
The Labor Department had previously taken steps to avert such problems. It eliminated the one-minute period starting at 8:29 a.m. EST during which communications lines were enabled in the data "lock up" room where credentialed reporters have access to the embargoed data 30 minutes before their official release.
Now, communications connections into the data lock-up room are disabled by the Labor Department for the entire half-hour, and aren't restored until the 8:30 a.m. EST release time.
A Labor Department spokesman declined to discuss the specific technical vulnerability that allowed last week's data to be released early.
The department issued guidelines to news agencies late Wednesday detailing how communications hardware must be configured to avoid future glitches.
-By Brian Blackstone, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-828-3397; brian.blackstone@dowjones.com
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Publié le 10 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones