There's an interesting story in the New York Post by John Crudele. 

Last week, one of the millions of workers hired by the Census Bureau blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.  The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by the Census Bureau.  Each time she was hired back, it seems, Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department.  Each month, Census gives the Labor Department a figure on the number of workers it has hired.  That figure goes into the monthly employment report.  The Post story says for the past two months the hiring by Census has made up a good portion of the new jobs.

Apparently, the Labor Department doesn't check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled.  It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least ONE HOUR  a month.

So if a worker is terminated after only one hour and another worker is hired in his place, then a second new job can apparently be reported to the Labor Department.

Add it to the list of reasons not to trust the government.