On Tuesday, the Labor Bureau issued a preliminary estimate for an annual benchmark revision regarding non-farm payrolls. This indicates that the US economy has more job losses than previously thought.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has shared its initial findings for these annual updates.
Each year, the BLS revises its data to include more accurate information from state unemployment records, which are published quarterly, alongside data on business births and closures.
This benchmarking approach offers a clearer and more precise view of the labor market compared to monthly agent surveys used to generate job reports, helping to address non-response and reporting errors that build up over time.
Why does the Department of Labor adjust employment reports? Here are three reasons:
The BLS revisions indicate that previous monthly reports might either exaggerate or downplay the actual job growth from April 2024 to March 2025.
The data from Tuesday acts as a preliminary estimate, with finalized revisions expected to be included in the January 2026 employment report out in February next year.
According to this preliminary estimate, 911,000 jobs were revised away, with private payrolls adjusted down by 880,000 jobs and government jobs by 31,000.
Revisions in the trade, transport, and utility sectors showed a drop of 226,000 jobs. However, this was somewhat countered by a rise of 6,600 jobs in transportation and warehouses, and 3,700 in utilities, alongside 126,000 jobs in retail and 110,000 in wholesale sectors.
Former BLS Commissioner advocates for improved data collection in job reports:
Changes in the leisure and hospitality sector amounted to a reduction of 176,000 jobs in the amendment.
Employment in professional and business services was adjusted down by 158,000 jobs, while the information sector saw a drop of 67,000 jobs and financial activities were reduced by 39,000 jobs.
Manufacturing jobs were lowered by 95,000, construction jobs by 29,000, and mining and logging jobs by 4,000 following the revisions.
In the private education and health services sector, there was a decline of 35,000 jobs, while other services reported a drop of 51,000 jobs.
The BLS noted that the preliminary estimate indicated a 0.6% decline in employment between April 2024 and March 2025. On average, the BLS’s annual benchmark revisions have generally shown a 0.2% increase in total employment over the past decade.
This is a developing story. Please check for updates.
