The BLS Employment Stats Annual Revision just knocked off 501,000 payroll jobs but don’t look for it in the reported numbers.
Each year, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey employment estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment for the month of March. These counts are derived from state unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file. For national CES employment series, the annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have averaged plus or minus two-tenths of one percent of total nonfarm employment. The preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision indicates a downward adjustment to March 2019 total nonfarm employment of -501,000 (-0.3 percent).
Preliminary benchmark revisions are calculated only for the month of March 2019 for the major industry sectors in table 1. The existing employment series are not updated with the release of the preliminary benchmark estimate. The data for all CES series will be updated when the final benchmark revision is issued.
Wait Until 2020 for Revision to Show Up
This revision, a large one, will not show up in reported numbers until February 2020 with the publication of the January 2020 Employment Situation news release.
Major Reductions
- Total: 501,000
- Private: 514,000
- Retail Trade: 146,000
- Professional and Business Services: 163,000
- Leisure and Hospitality: 175,000
The largest upward revision was transportation and warehousing at +79,000 jobs.
For 10 years, revisions were in the range of +- 0.2%. This revision was 50% above the absolute value 10-year average, and negative.
In general, the jobs reports looked too good to be true, and they were too good to be true.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
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Does this mean the BLS over counted the number of jobs added between March 2018 and March 2019 by 501k?
If so, that’s 2-3 months of job gains. How can they be so far off?
Because not every person that loses their job files for unemployment insurance AND the government does lots of guessing. Lots of guessing and estimating going on.
Will this effect the unemployment number? Seems like that’s much more important.
Having been out job hunting a bit off and on over the last 6 months here in LA, definitely not a job seeker’s market and the number of folks applying for the individual jobs is in the thousands
There’s oodles of part-time, crap-pay job openings. This is what they call a “strong economy.”
LA has had a lion’s share of companies move to Texas. Today Uber announced the building of a new hub in Dallas and up 5000 jobs and salaries upwards of $300M in aggregate. California is now suffering net losses in population with even taking immigration into account. People really can’t afford to live in the Bay Area or Los Angeles and are fleeing the state for jobs along with the companies that employ them. Uber is expected to hire and move people from San Francisco and Austin to Dallas.
FWIW, I think when a recession does hit this time, the coasts could be affected a lot worse than the low-tax havens like Texas or Florida. As more companies relocate to business friendly climates, it will bring down states like California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut more quickly. Limiting SALT deduction also has driven people out to lower cost states. Of course I suspect Texas and other states will suffer the same consequences as California did in the 80s and 90s. Multiple polls no suggest Biden would beat Trump in Texas. As Texas becomes a haven for transplants and Latinos that can now vote (10M new voters in 2020), it is quite possible Texas turns blue a lot quicker than people were initially thinking.
Texas only had 20M voters in 2016, you’re suggesting it’s now 30M? Seems unlikely.
Is LA Los Angeles or Louisiana?
Inflation statistics even worse.
It’s the swamp trying to overthrow Dear Leader.
whoa.
Compare this number to final benchmark revision (January) of past 3 years.
2016 … -81K …
2017 … +138K …
2018 … -16K …
A little fuel to my point that at economic inflection moments … economists can be waayyy off with initial estimate compared with subsequent revision.
We know BLS always gets it wrong at turning points. This is more evidence that a recession is likely on its way.
“Faulty Birth/Death model assumptions to blame?”
I suspect double-counting of part-time jobs but it could be a combination of things including their models.
The Birth-Death model is very faulty at major turns
Faulty Birth/Death model assumptions to blame?