US Government Overreported Yearly Job Gains by 800K
According to a new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, the US economy produced 818K fewer non-farm jobs from March 2023 to March 2024 than previously reported by the Labor Department. The BLS said this -0.5% year-over-year growth rate revision is more than the typical -0.1%....
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Facts
- According to a new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, the US economy produced 818K fewer non-farm jobs from March 2023 to March 2024 than previously reported by the Labor Department. The BLS said this -0.5% year-over-year growth rate revision is more than the typical -0.1%.[1][2]
- The revision, which is the largest since 2009, shows an increase of 2.1M jobs over that period, down from 2.9M previously reported. This brings the average monthly job growth down from over 240K to somewhere between 170K and 180K over that time span.[3][1]
- The economic sectors with the largest downward revisions were professional and business services at -358K, leisure and hospitality with -150K, manufacturing at -115K, and transportation and utilities at -104K.[4]
- Investors predicted some sort of downward revision, including Goldman Sachs' -1M projection and Well Fargo's -600K, which were based on factors like rising unemployment. The BLS revision is based on updated payroll data, though the official report won't be released until February.[5][1]
- This follows a negative revision report of 306K last year and over 462K in 2022. However, this revision, according to a Goldman Sachs analyst, may be 'misleading' because 400K-600K of new jobs over this time period were obtained by illegal immigrants and thus excluded from the data.[3]
- This also comes ahead of the Federal Reserve's meeting next month in Wyoming, during which the central bank is expected by some to cut interest rates by 0.5%.[5]
Sources: [1]The Hill, [2]New York Post, [3]Forbes, [4]Guardian and [5]Wsj.
Narratives
- Republican narrative, as provided by FOX News and X. This proves that Biden and the Democrats have been gaslighting the country for a year. As regular Americans felt the pain of declining wages and increased inflation, Biden unabashedly argued that at least job growth was positive. This also shows that while American citizens were forced into unemployment and excluded from pay raises, illegal immigrants were finding jobs in droves, thus pushing wages down even further.
- Democratic narrative, as provided by New York Times. While this report is a bit larger than usual, downward job growth revisions happen every year, including in 2019, when they were revised down by 489K. These latest numbers may have also been affected by the economic impacts of Hurricane Beryl last month in the large state of Texas. This report aside, the goal of labor market cooling to quell inflation is continuing as predicted, with unemployment rising a bit while layoffs remain low.
