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Q: Hasn't the US monthly jobs figure frequently been revised downwards over recent years, regardless of which administration was in charge? (edit - see for ins

Q: Hasn't the US monthly jobs figure frequently been revised downwards over recent years, regardless of which administration was in charge? (edit - see for instance Aug 2024: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4142722-why-was-there-such-a-big-revision-to-non-farm-payroll-growth https://seekingalpha.com/news/4142722-why-was-there-such-a-b... )

gdulli 1y ago
You're right, I don't think that part is meant to be controversial.
- georgeecollins 1y ago
  The department of labor has a methodology that gives an early number that tends to get revised. They have been doing it the same way for a long time and it would not be controversial, except the business press with too little news to report makes a big deal about it with very little context. So its, like jobs increased 200k (not saying +/- 200k is the error bar). It would be good for everyone if people who are not professional economists paid less attention to this.
  - logifail 1y ago
    > It would be good for everyone if people who are not professional economists paid less attention to this. It would be good for everyone if the BLS figures were trusted. Even "not professional economists" might lose trust in figures which are regularly revised downwards ... months after being published.
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      They're preliminary figures! The only alternative is for BLS to be less transparent, collecting data and then refusing to release it until they have enough information to construct their final estimate.
      - Hamuko 1y ago
        I feel like there's a real alternative in changing your methology for estimating job creation, especially as survey response rates continue to fall.
        mandevil 1y ago
        Yes, and both William Beach (the one confirmed under Trump in 2019 who served through most of Biden's term) and Erika McEntarfer (the one confirmed under Biden who was just fired by Trump) talked about how they wanted to improve the methodology. Because these numbers are so important- to journalists, to the Fed, to financial markets, etc. they wanted a few million dollars extra, over a few year period, to run the new methodology and the old methodology side-by-side for a significant portion of a business cycle, to understand the differences before they switched, and to gain confidence in the system. Because an important part of this particular data set is what it signals to those others, it is important not to move quickly with this data set, but to give time for everyone to understand all the nuances. It's things like, how the market views the meaning of corrections would be different under a different system, and so they want time so that they themselves and all those other people whose jobs depend on understanding it to be fully aware. Basically, they wanted to run a blue-green deployment strategy for their updates, but couldn't get the budget for it- and their budget has instead been cut so far. So they have prioritized continuing the system that everyone understands rather than experimenting with new things that no one understands. Because these are smart, well educated people who spend their entire lives thinking about these problems, and understand how the data is used, this is something they have thought about a lot and want to do the best job they can.
    - kgermino 1y ago
      they're regularly revised up or down because they're (very openly) preliminary numbers released just days after the month ends and before many employers have even answered the survey. When the economy reaches an inflection point they tend to be streaky (multiple revisions down or up in a row) but that's nothing new and mostly just means that the economy has been getting worse over the last year and a half, which... that's one of the big arguments for Trump's victory so I'm not sure why it would be a surprise.
    - albumen 1y ago
      As posted just a few posts above yours, this link provides some helpful factual reference: https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-preliminary-and-final-data-for-additions-losses-to-nonfarm-payroll-employment/ https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-prel...
    - babblingdweeb 1y ago
      Trust in the numbers is extremely important and we should all be calling out that we need to trust the numbers and the methodology. It should also be transparent. However, it's extremely common in forecasting to revise the forecast once actuals come in. In the case of the BLS, it's the documented approach for a very long time. Every month the numbers are adjusted and annually. All of the notes as to why, the method, etc are in the actual reports*. *I don't recommend reading them or the footnotes unless you have insomnia. :) ** Also, if the source data is inaccurate, corrupted, etc; if the models are non-transparently adjusted, that would be horrible and cause for alarm. At the moment, we don't know if that is the case. Yet.
    - michaelbuckbee 1y ago
      The stats are "regularly revised" (sometimes up, sometimes down). Though honestly, I wish the terminology were changed to "forecasted" and "actual" to be clearer.
    - DavidPeiffer 1y ago
      It's the best data that's available at the time. It's been collected in a consistent fashion for a significant duration of time. To understand how a new methodology would differ, we'd want to run a new process in parallel for a couple years. A few notes from an interview on the Odd Lots podcast, interviewing Bill Beach, former head of the BLS: * Response rates among surveyed employees are roughly: Month 1 68% Month 2 83% Month 3 93-94% * Large employers tend to respond sooner, and are staffed to handle these requests better. -------- April 2025 interview: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-important-economic-data-is-decaying/id1056200096?i=1000705520320 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-... August 2025 interview (after BLS head statistician was fired): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-beach-on-how-trump-just-politicized-us-economic-data/id1056200096?i=1000720631550 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-beach-on-how-trum... Some notes and a transcript: https://www.crisesnotes.com/bloomberg-odd-lots-podcast-transcript-an-interview-with-former-bls-commissioner-bill-beach/ https://www.crisesnotes.com/bloomberg-odd-lots-podcast-trans...
  - triceratops 1y ago
    Serious question: employers presumably also use DoL numbers to decide whether to invest or cut. Could incorrect initial numbers lead to a self-fulfilling spiral?
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Employers use a lot of data. DoL numbers are one, but they are trying to predict their own future needs. They generally have much better sources of data to their industry that are used as well. Different companies react differently as well. Companies that have a steady flow of cash (food is very inelastic - people eat about the same every day) realize they can give smaller raises, and this is a good time to invest in the company by building so they often hire. Companies that make luxury goods for the common man (think small boats - large yachts for the rich are different) tighten their belts because they are the first place people in fear cut spending.
xnx 1y ago
Chart with more historical revision context: https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-preliminary-and-final-data-for-additions-losses-to-nonfarm-payroll-employment/ https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-prel...
- MarkusQ 1y ago
  That gives context, but lacks the final ~900K downward revision the article is about. If it had been shown, it would be the largest revision on the chart.
  - botro 1y ago
    I think that statista chart is month to month revisions, while the 900K figure is year over year, March 2024 to March 2025.
    - MarkusQ 1y ago
      I believe you may correct; the final point is still absent (since the link chart predates the data in the story) and would (I think) continue the downward trend, but by how much is not clear.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    Nate Silver has a previous analysis of this data https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont-fool https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont... The monthly revisions are historically all over the place, up and down. My 2024 count says six months were revised up and six were revised down.
    - daymanstep 1y ago
      The downward revisions were overall a lot bigger than the upward revisions. BLS methodology causes it to get data from larger companies first, and this tends to systemically bias it towards downward revisions
bananalychee 1y ago
It's not without precedent, but the fact that initial job numbers have been consistently inflated over the last 3 years and that the magnitude of the downwards revisions is on par with 2008-2009 for two years in a row (and growing) is concerning.
- jeffbee 1y ago
  The need of downward revisions is 100% due to falling and selective response rate to the early survey.
  - orwin 1y ago
    If it's like in my country, it's probably because you have more and more people "self-employed", and the average "small business" went down from 3.8 employees to 2.2 over the last 6 years (made up numbers, but i've read it almost halved which caused a lot of issues). I think we created a new status for Uber/Deliveroo and other workers to put them out of the category three years ago and it fixed a lot of our employment data issues.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      You seem to be under the impression that these figures are exclusively sourced from employers, but they are not. They are sourced in part from a survey of 60,000 households every month, where each household in the the survey for several consecutive months. Here is some information about non-response rate: https://www.bls.gov/cps/methods/response_rates.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/methods/response_rates.htm
      - logifail 1y ago
        > You seem to be under the impression that these figures are exclusively sourced from employers, but they are not. They are sourced in part from a survey of 60,000 households every month, where each household in the the survey for several consecutive months These are two separate metrics, they measure different things, and the figures often differ (unsurprisingly). The BLS "establishment" survey (aka Current Employment Statistics, CES) surveys 120k+ businesses and government agencies, it measures jobs (not people), counting the number of payroll positions. This is "non-farm payroll employment", excluding the self-employed, farm workers, and private household workers. The BLS "household" survey (aka Current Population Survey, CPS) surveys ~60k households, measuring individuals, whether they are employed, unemployed, or not in the labour force. These data are used to calculate the unemployment rate and labour force participation. This includes farm workers, the self-employed, and domestic workers.
babblingdweeb 1y ago
(reposting a version of my comment somewhere below) The BLS (USA) does adjust the numbers every month (for two months after the initial release) and annually. Regardless if the numbers go up or down, this is fairly common with statistics and forecasting in general. When actuals come in, the forecast is adjusted closer to reality. Anecdotally: It gets lost in the mix of headlines when those adjustments show that the initial projections were on trend, or "close enough the talking heads don't care enough". However, it gets "interesting" when it's off-trend; or confirms prior notable good/bad news. In this case, it confirms* what was suspected, mostly confirms what was reported. As actuals came in, the reality was worse than projected. *"Confirms" use case here: job growth is poop right now.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
CGMthrowaway 1y ago
https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm

gdulli 1y ago

You're right, I don't think that part is meant to be controversial.

georgeecollins 1y ago
The department of labor has a methodology that gives an early number that tends to get revised. They have been doing it the same way for a long time and it would not be controversial, except the business press with too little news to report makes a big deal about it with very little context. So its, like jobs increased 200k (not saying +/- 200k is the error bar). It would be good for everyone if people who are not professional economists paid less attention to this.
- logifail 1y ago
  > It would be good for everyone if people who are not professional economists paid less attention to this. It would be good for everyone if the BLS figures were trusted. Even "not professional economists" might lose trust in figures which are regularly revised downwards ... months after being published.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    They're preliminary figures! The only alternative is for BLS to be less transparent, collecting data and then refusing to release it until they have enough information to construct their final estimate.
    - Hamuko 1y ago
      I feel like there's a real alternative in changing your methology for estimating job creation, especially as survey response rates continue to fall.
      - mandevil 1y ago
        Yes, and both William Beach (the one confirmed under Trump in 2019 who served through most of Biden's term) and Erika McEntarfer (the one confirmed under Biden who was just fired by Trump) talked about how they wanted to improve the methodology. Because these numbers are so important- to journalists, to the Fed, to financial markets, etc. they wanted a few million dollars extra, over a few year period, to run the new methodology and the old methodology side-by-side for a significant portion of a business cycle, to understand the differences before they switched, and to gain confidence in the system. Because an important part of this particular data set is what it signals to those others, it is important not to move quickly with this data set, but to give time for everyone to understand all the nuances. It's things like, how the market views the meaning of corrections would be different under a different system, and so they want time so that they themselves and all those other people whose jobs depend on understanding it to be fully aware. Basically, they wanted to run a blue-green deployment strategy for their updates, but couldn't get the budget for it- and their budget has instead been cut so far. So they have prioritized continuing the system that everyone understands rather than experimenting with new things that no one understands. Because these are smart, well educated people who spend their entire lives thinking about these problems, and understand how the data is used, this is something they have thought about a lot and want to do the best job they can.
  - kgermino 1y ago
    they're regularly revised up or down because they're (very openly) preliminary numbers released just days after the month ends and before many employers have even answered the survey. When the economy reaches an inflection point they tend to be streaky (multiple revisions down or up in a row) but that's nothing new and mostly just means that the economy has been getting worse over the last year and a half, which... that's one of the big arguments for Trump's victory so I'm not sure why it would be a surprise.
  - albumen 1y ago
    As posted just a few posts above yours, this link provides some helpful factual reference: https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-preliminary-and-final-data-for-additions-losses-to-nonfarm-payroll-employment/ https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-prel...
  - babblingdweeb 1y ago
    Trust in the numbers is extremely important and we should all be calling out that we need to trust the numbers and the methodology. It should also be transparent. However, it's extremely common in forecasting to revise the forecast once actuals come in. In the case of the BLS, it's the documented approach for a very long time. Every month the numbers are adjusted and annually. All of the notes as to why, the method, etc are in the actual reports*. *I don't recommend reading them or the footnotes unless you have insomnia. :) ** Also, if the source data is inaccurate, corrupted, etc; if the models are non-transparently adjusted, that would be horrible and cause for alarm. At the moment, we don't know if that is the case. Yet.
  - michaelbuckbee 1y ago
    The stats are "regularly revised" (sometimes up, sometimes down). Though honestly, I wish the terminology were changed to "forecasted" and "actual" to be clearer.
  - DavidPeiffer 1y ago
    It's the best data that's available at the time. It's been collected in a consistent fashion for a significant duration of time. To understand how a new methodology would differ, we'd want to run a new process in parallel for a couple years. A few notes from an interview on the Odd Lots podcast, interviewing Bill Beach, former head of the BLS: * Response rates among surveyed employees are roughly: Month 1 68% Month 2 83% Month 3 93-94% * Large employers tend to respond sooner, and are staffed to handle these requests better. -------- April 2025 interview: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-important-economic-data-is-decaying/id1056200096?i=1000705520320 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-... August 2025 interview (after BLS head statistician was fired): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-beach-on-how-trump-just-politicized-us-economic-data/id1056200096?i=1000720631550 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-beach-on-how-trum... Some notes and a transcript: https://www.crisesnotes.com/bloomberg-odd-lots-podcast-transcript-an-interview-with-former-bls-commissioner-bill-beach/ https://www.crisesnotes.com/bloomberg-odd-lots-podcast-trans...
- triceratops 1y ago
  Serious question: employers presumably also use DoL numbers to decide whether to invest or cut. Could incorrect initial numbers lead to a self-fulfilling spiral?
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Employers use a lot of data. DoL numbers are one, but they are trying to predict their own future needs. They generally have much better sources of data to their industry that are used as well. Different companies react differently as well. Companies that have a steady flow of cash (food is very inelastic - people eat about the same every day) realize they can give smaller raises, and this is a good time to invest in the company by building so they often hire. Companies that make luxury goods for the common man (think small boats - large yachts for the rich are different) tighten their belts because they are the first place people in fear cut spending.

xnx 1y ago

Chart with more historical revision context: https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-preliminary-and-final-data-for-additions-losses-to-nonfarm-payroll-employment/ https://www.statista.com/chart/34931/difference-between-prel...

MarkusQ 1y ago
That gives context, but lacks the final ~900K downward revision the article is about. If it had been shown, it would be the largest revision on the chart.
- botro 1y ago
  I think that statista chart is month to month revisions, while the 900K figure is year over year, March 2024 to March 2025.
  - MarkusQ 1y ago
    I believe you may correct; the final point is still absent (since the link chart predates the data in the story) and would (I think) continue the downward trend, but by how much is not clear.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  Nate Silver has a previous analysis of this data https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont-fool https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont... The monthly revisions are historically all over the place, up and down. My 2024 count says six months were revised up and six were revised down.
  - daymanstep 1y ago
    The downward revisions were overall a lot bigger than the upward revisions. BLS methodology causes it to get data from larger companies first, and this tends to systemically bias it towards downward revisions

bananalychee 1y ago

It's not without precedent, but the fact that initial job numbers have been consistently inflated over the last 3 years and that the magnitude of the downwards revisions is on par with 2008-2009 for two years in a row (and growing) is concerning.

jeffbee 1y ago
The need of downward revisions is 100% due to falling and selective response rate to the early survey.
- orwin 1y ago
  If it's like in my country, it's probably because you have more and more people "self-employed", and the average "small business" went down from 3.8 employees to 2.2 over the last 6 years (made up numbers, but i've read it almost halved which caused a lot of issues). I think we created a new status for Uber/Deliveroo and other workers to put them out of the category three years ago and it fixed a lot of our employment data issues.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    You seem to be under the impression that these figures are exclusively sourced from employers, but they are not. They are sourced in part from a survey of 60,000 households every month, where each household in the the survey for several consecutive months. Here is some information about non-response rate: https://www.bls.gov/cps/methods/response_rates.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/methods/response_rates.htm
    - logifail 1y ago
      > You seem to be under the impression that these figures are exclusively sourced from employers, but they are not. They are sourced in part from a survey of 60,000 households every month, where each household in the the survey for several consecutive months These are two separate metrics, they measure different things, and the figures often differ (unsurprisingly). The BLS "establishment" survey (aka Current Employment Statistics, CES) surveys 120k+ businesses and government agencies, it measures jobs (not people), counting the number of payroll positions. This is "non-farm payroll employment", excluding the self-employed, farm workers, and private household workers. The BLS "household" survey (aka Current Population Survey, CPS) surveys ~60k households, measuring individuals, whether they are employed, unemployed, or not in the labour force. These data are used to calculate the unemployment rate and labour force participation. This includes farm workers, the self-employed, and domestic workers.

babblingdweeb 1y ago

(reposting a version of my comment somewhere below) The BLS (USA) does adjust the numbers every month (for two months after the initial release) and annually. Regardless if the numbers go up or down, this is fairly common with statistics and forecasting in general. When actuals come in, the forecast is adjusted closer to reality. Anecdotally: It gets lost in the mix of headlines when those adjustments show that the initial projections were on trend, or "close enough the talking heads don't care enough". However, it gets "interesting" when it's off-trend; or confirms prior notable good/bad news. In this case, it confirms* what was suspected, mostly confirms what was reported. As actuals came in, the reality was worse than projected. *"Confirms" use case here: job growth is poop right now.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

CGMthrowaway 1y ago

https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm