JOB LAYOFFS WORSE THAN FIRST THOUGHT : ORIGINAL FIGURES FLAWED.

Byline: Richard W. Stevenson The New York Times

Despite the economic recovery and substantial numbers of new jobs, the rate of layoffs in the work force in the middle of the decade remained roughly the same compared with the early 1990s, according to revised figures released Friday by the Labor Department.

The numbers corrected August data, which appeared to show that the rate and number of layoffs had declined in the past few years, despite a wave of corporate reorganizations, the migration of some jobs to low-wage countries and increased automation.

The original numbers, however, contained a statistical flaw that was discovered by a Princeton University researcher.

The revised figures showed:

9.4 million people lost jobs from 1993 through 1995, compared with 9.2 million from 1991 through 1993. The Labor Department originally reported a decline to 8.4 million for the most recent three years from 9 million in the early years of the decade.

8 percent of the labor force identified themselves as having lost a job involuntarily from 1993 through 1995, compared with 8.2 percent in the prior survey, which covered 1991 through 1993. The Labor Department originally said that the rate of layoffs had fallen to 7.2 percent.

The Clinton administration seized on the original numbers in August to back up its contention that the worst of the layoffs that had swept the economy was past.

Friday, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Joseph Stiglitz, said other data still suggested that involuntary job losses were declining, and he raised questions about the statistical validity of the Labor Department numbers.

Stiglitz said the best indicator of job losses was the weekly tally of new claims for unemployment insurance. The average for that figure has declined from 484,000 a week in the first quarter of 1991 to 331,000 a week in this year's third quarter, he said, a decline of 31.6 percent.

Those claims, however, also include people who are laid off only temporarily and tend to follow the ups-and-downs of the economy more closely than the layoff figures compiled every other year.

Stiglitz said the economy has created 10.5 million net new jobs since Clinton took office.

But GOP challenger Bob Dole's team seized on the revision as evidence that workers had been shortchanged by what the Republican nominee has long lambasted as the weakest economic recovery on record.

``With or without the statistics, Bob Dole realizes economic anxiety is real and spreading like a virus through America's work force,'' said Christina Martin, spokeswoman for Dole.