The BLS did not release the expected household annual population adjustments.
Understanding the Lead Chart
Before discussing the January 2026 data, it is important to understand the lead chart.
Every January (typically), the BLS has annual revisions to nonfarm payrolls and household population employment. The BLS does not back revise the household charts.
Because the BLS does not back revise. We see ridiculous numbers such as employment rising by over 2 million in a month (yellow arrow).
To correct for the population adjustments, the BLS provides an adjustment series to normalize employment levels to match nonfarm payrolls. The BLS calls this “experimental” data but the regular posted data is know garbage.
The experimental series is LNS16000000, “Employment Adjusted to CES Concepts“.
It is updated once a year, typically in January. However, the BLS did not release the population adjustments this month.
For 2024, the BLS admits that it undercounted employment by 2 million, spread out over a number of years. Instead of parsing that out in the correct months, the BLS plowed the entire adjustment into January of 2025.
All posts on foreign-born employment suffer this flaw. There are no back adjustments. We did not suddenly add 2.245 million jobs in January of 2025, all US-Born. (Difference between the dashed blue line and the yellow line)
There is no valid data at all on full vs parttime employment, on foreign born employment, etc.
Expected Population Control Update Did Not Happen
BLS Note: The annual population control adjustments that are usually incorporated with the release of January estimates in February will instead be introduced with the release of February 2026 estimates in March.
Consequently, the initial January 2026 household survey estimates in this news release continue to use short-term projections of monthly population estimates derived from population adjustments introduced in January 2025 (based on Vintage 2024 population estimates provided by the U.S. Census Bureau). As soon as practicable, BLS plans to revise January 2026 estimates to incorporate the updated population controls.
Short Synopsis
- The Household Survey this month is garbage, more so than usual.
- The BLS did not release the annual household population control estimates.
I don’t accuse the BLS of direct data manipulation. Mostly, the BLS has really sloppy procedures and data collection issues on top of declining response rates.
However, the absence of expected 2025 population adjustments makes the transition from December 2025 to January 2026 bogus, and suspicious.
The BLS did release adjustments to the Establishment Survey. The result was over a million less jobs in 2025 than previously announced.
My Charts
I will continue to use what the BLS refers to as “experimental data” in my charts because the official series data is admitted garbage, especially for year-over-year comparisons.
All household data is subject to bad sampling and poor response rates. Illegal immigrants are highly unlikely to be responding accurately to government data surveys, if responding at all.
As noted, this experimental data is delayed this month. So, my lead chart, while the best anyone can do, is still inaccurate.
Key Thoughts for January 2026
- All Household data below is suspect for reasons explained above.
- Establishment data (nonfarm payrolls) for January is also suspect. Who really believes a gain of 130,000 jobs in January?
- The BLS reports the economy lost 45,000 nonfarm payroll jobs between July and December of 2025. So suddenly businesses go on a hiring spree in January. Really?
- The negative revision of over a million Establishment Survey nonfarm payrolls for 2025 is believable. It’s based on highly accurate quarterly reports.
Monthly Job Report Details
- Nonfarm Payroll: +130,000 to 158,627,000 – Establishment Survey
- Civilian Non-institutional Population: +166,000 to 274,982,000
- Civilian Labor Force: +387,000 to 171,882,000 – Household Survey
- Participation Rate: +0.1 to 62.5% – Household Survey
- Employment:+528,000 to 164,520,000 – Household Survey
- Unemployment: -141,000 to 7,362,000 – Household Survey
- Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.1 to 4.4% – Household Survey
- Not in Labor Force: -221,000 to 103,100,000 – Household Survey
- U-6 unemployment: -0.4 to 8.0% – Household Survey
Nonfarm Payrolls Change by Sector
Nonfarm Payrolls Change by Sector in Thousands
- Nonfarm Payrolls: +130
- Manufacturing: +5
- Construction: +33
- Leisure and Hospitality: +1
- Private Education and Health Care: +137
- Professional and Business Services: +34
- Information: -12
- Financial: -22
- Retail: +3
- Wholesale: 0
- Government: -42
Private education and health (demographic related) is again the strongest sector.
Monthly Revisions
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised down by 15,000, from +56,000 to +41,000.
- The change for December was revised down by 2,000, from +50,000 to +48,000.
- With these revisions, employment in November and December combined is 17,000 lower than previously reported.
Part-Time Jobs
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: -453,000 to 4,888,000
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: +678,000 to 22,929,000
- Total Full-Time Work: +582,000 to 135,797,000
- Total Part-Time Work: +31,000 to 28,743,000
- Multiple Job Holders: +-79,000 to 8,769,000
The above numbers never total correctly due to the way the BLS makes seasonal adjustments. I list them as reported.
Hours and Wages
- Average weekly hours of all private employees rose by 0.1 at 34.3 hours.
- Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at 33.2 hours.
- Average weekly hours of manufacturers rose 0.1 hours to 40.1 hours.
Hourly Earnings
This data is also frequently revised. Here are the numbers as reported this month.
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.15 to $37.17. A year ago the average wage was $35.84. That’s a gain of 3.7%.
Average hourly earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Workers rose $0.12 to $31.95. A year ago the average wage was $30.79. That’s a gain of 3.2%.
Those gains are reportedly beating inflation. But that’s nonsense too because the CPI does not count property taxes or homeowners’ insurance in its calculations.
Unemployment Rate
Alternative Measures of Unemployment
Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.
- The official unemployment rate is 4.3 percent.
- U-6 is much higher at 8.0 percent.
Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.
Some of those dropping out of the labor force retired because they wanted to retire. Some dropped out over Covid fears and never returned. Still others took advantage of a strong stock market and retired early.
The rest is disability fraud, forced retirement (need for Social Security income), and discouraged workers.
Birth Death Model
Starting January 2014, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report.
The birth-death model pertains to the birth and death of corporations not individuals except by implication.
For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.
Birth-Death Methodology Explained
I gave a detailed explanation of the model and why the usual calculation is wrong in my June 8, 2024 post How Much Did the BLS Birth-Death Adjustment Pad the May Jobs Report?
I repeat, do not subtract the birth-death number from the headline number.
Household Survey vs. Payroll Survey
- The payroll survey (sometimes called the establishment survey) is the headline jobs number. It is based on employer reporting.
- The household survey is a phone survey conducted by the BLS. It measures employment, unemployment and other factors.
If you work one hour, you are employed. If you don’t have a job and fail to look for one, you are not considered unemployed, rather, you drop out of the labor force.
Negative Revisions
On September 9, 2025 I commented New QCEW Data Indicates More Big Negative Revisions Coming to Job Reports
The discrepancy between jobs reports and quarterly data widens again.
Sure enough. With the January 2026 report, the BLS revised nonfarm payrolls lower for last year by over 1 million jobs.
Understanding the Enormous BLS Job Report Errors
For a full explanation of the lead chart, please see my December 18, 2025 post Understanding the Enormous BLS Job Report Errors, What Really Happened?
Four things: Immigration, Birth-Death Model, Response Rates, Sampling.
Incredibly Bad Standard Numbers
Many people are reporting unbelievable year-over-year numbers, then attributing the improvement to Trump.
For example, on the Benchmark adjusted chart, Employment in November 2025 was 163,741,000 and November of 2024 was 161,661,000. That’s supposedly a gain of 2.08 million.
But that entire gain occurred in January of 2025 when the BLS threw the whole adjustment into a single month.
Foreign-Born Employment Nonsense
The numbers in my charts are seasonally adjusted. Foreign born employment is not adjusted, compounding comparison errors.
And we have no BLS revised data for foreign born employment. So, all such foreign and US-born comparisons with BLS data remain garbage.
A second major problem with foreign-born employment is the BLS makes no distinction between US citizens who were foreign born and genuine foreign workers.
Final Thoughts
Last month I stated “W are working with highly revised monthly data then potentially huge benchmark revisions.”
Those potentially revisions are now posted.
However, the annual household population revisions are not yet posted. Despite being the BLS best estimates, they are considered “experimental”.
BLS Revises Nonfarm Payrolls for 2025 Lower by 1 Million Jobs
This morning I discussed the BLS annual revisions to nonfarm payrolls.
For discussion, please see BLS Revises Nonfarm Payrolls for 2025 Lower by 1 Million Jobs
For the second year, the BLS annual benchmark revision was hugely negative.
Related Posts
February 5, 2026: Challenger Job Cuts In January Highest Since 2009, Lowest January Hiring Ever
It’s more grim data to start the year.
February 10, 2026: Highest Delinquency Rate Since 2017, Having Trouble Paying Bills?
Credit card balances 90+days delinquent is the highest since 2011.
February 10, 2026: Retail Sales Fizzle, Real Sales Turn Negative from a Year Ago
Will the unexpected consumer spending weakness continue?
February 7, 2026: Education and Health Services Is Now the Sole Driver of Jobs
A recession proof industry is the last industry standing.
Find the truth by comparing the lies
Leon Trotsky
The only highway East or West in or out was bumber to bumber & convoys of transport trucks all day long day after day. Since December 2025 traffic has lots of long space in between and Convoys are now singular trucks hauling goods and materials. Many new highrise are 80% empty with banners across buildings offering 2 months free rent, Lowered rents and many other incentives. Costco Used to drive around the parking lot for any space and now take your pick where you want to park and inside No more Long Line ups. My son and 24 other concrete truck drivers gets to sit at home waiting for one or two days a week of work. That is reality if you look. Don’t need any Pumped up BS Jobs numbers. Create and Post great numbers or YOUR FIRED.
Can you explain what exactly comprises “experimental data”?
I have on three occasions.
However, if people are confused, perhaps I did not explain things well.
The short story is experimental data factors in annual revisions.
The regular data does not.
The standard result is total nonsense like 2 million job gains in January. That is why year-over-year household comparisons are nonsense.
I modified my explanation. It should be more understandable.
please read this:
https://mishtalk.com/economics/except-for-revisions-the-bls-employment-report-is-more-admitted-nonsense/
Floozie Blondie in front of Congress today raving about the Dow. She should be doing lingerie shows at a bar across from a closed auto plant in Flint Michigan. Maybe Bill Barr will show up.
All these numbers have huge effects on our speculator economy.
The headlines influence the front-running, the computers doing bids and asks, and even money flows, at least in the short-term.
So all these headline numbers are political footballs and play prominently in comments by the politicians in charge.
Why would it be impossible not to change the mandates and methodologies when it clearly produces garbage? Apparently there is little motivation to change this state of affairs. I mean, they have not trouble trashing international & domestic laws, farming out young women, burying investigations, or sending Carrier Strike groups in contravention of international law (the UN Charter), which is also US domestic law (ratified by the Senate).
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Garbage information does not matter one bit to the pack of liars and thieves occupying our nations capitol.
WMD is my GOLD STANDARD, for figuring out who is downright idiot or not. of course intelligence and cunning and wealth, has nothing to do with wisdom. wisdom, is the true rare earth riches…..
The data from the BLS may be bullshit, but the data coming from the COMEX regarding silver deliveries is not.
OT!
.
Today the 11th of February there were 3,256,883 ounces of silver removed from the COMEX registered inventory. and delivered.
For this massive delivery to occur during the typical non-delivery month of February is a big statement regarding what is going on in the silver market.
The COMEX is now being used as a physical silver delivery facility. In addition to this, contracts for March delivery were rolled backward into February and will stand for delivery before the upcoming March contract expiry.
This drawdown is over three times the already large February off-take average of 800,000 ounces per day and inventory now breaks below 100 million ounces to sit at 98,138,005 ounces.
For the first time ever, 98% of open contracts are standing for delivery.
The industrial uses of silver have exceeded production for five years running and demand for physical is growing rapidly.
For stackers or owners of mining shares this is fantastic news. JPM will eventually sell into this market as they have accumulated a huge position and some banks that are short will eat huge losses.
The Chinese investor Bianming that lives in Gibraltar is short 30,000 contracts of 5,000 per contract is about to jump off the rock…
Bravo For some and Ouch for others. Investing is like that!
The message that the silver and gold markets are sending is that confidence in Donald Trumps administration is falling hard and fast.
On a global basis, our former trusted allies and trading partners are turning their eyes elsewhere to find reliable markets and new trading partners. Trump is forcing our trading partners away from the US.
Sell the dollar!
Sell US Treasuries!
Those chants in the forest the direct result of Trumps economic ignorance.
Sad times for Americans as the world sells our bonds and buys physical assets without the threat of Trumps insanely random weaponization.
I no longer own any US Treasuries or bonds.
American farmers have lost access to global markets. Adding insult to injury. Those markets will not be coming back as Brazil, Canada, Australia and Argentina have quickly stepped up and replaced our farm products. Those countries are not run by vicious perverts.
Today, Air Canada bought A350 Airbus Widebody planes instead of going with Boeing. More Trump Winning? NOT!
YOU ARE THE BEST FROSTY. I THANK YOU
LOVE IT
Yes, it is complete garbage. Somehow the government gets our payroll data at least every two weeks but is not capable of putting timely and accurate reports.
Of course not. The reports have to be adjusted seasonably until they look good. Then, correct them a year later when they’re old news.
What else did you expect from the current dc group?
“It’s not spaghetti, its linguini”
“Now it’s garbage.”
Mish – Being a micro-economist, I work with data from hundreds of sources both private and public, and I warn all my clients that all data suck. It is our job as professional economists to work with multiple data sources and use methodologies that help to minimize the “suckiness.”
That said, the Federal data agencies do have their hands tied behind their backs. They can’t just decide to change a methodology when, for example, the definition of a payroll job changes (as happened during the last Administration), or when survey techniques prove to be inadequate. They have to go through a time consuming rulemaking process.
This is not to say that the agencies are super good at gathering and analyzing data. They are super slow and their presentation skills are rough, but they cannot really be blamed for everything. There are just so many constraints that they have to work with. I have found that when I do finally locate the person in an agency that is the “name your detailed micro statistic”-person, that they are always very helpful and happy to discuss their data.
Same is true with many of the other statistical agencies such as Statistics Canada and the OECD.
I am actually a BLS defender. Their methods suck but it is not their fault. I attack the methods not the persons. I do not think they manipulate data. I am however suspicious of the delay this month.
I have detailed a conversation I had with the BLS years ago. I asked “Why don’t you wee out duplicate social security numbers?”
The answer was we want to but do not have access to the data. I was shocked by that and asked why. The answer was we cannot see the data because we are not allowed to see social security numbers.
Now this is silly because they could be encrypted. But it’s not. Instead, the BLS cannot see any treasury data, for security reasons. So we have sampling errors and a stupid Birth-Death model and all sorts of other complexities because the BLS does not have access to the data they need to do their job.
I totally agree. Its the process, not the people. But it would take congress passing an actual bill (good luck), or a major rule change on the part of dozens of agencies to change anything (again – good luck).
Fair enough, Mish, on your criticism of this specific data collection issue. But as a libertarian, I assumed you would appreciate random bureaucrats in acronym-laden government agencies not having access to your SS or detailed work/wage info – just to calculate some monthly percentage of unemployed persons of an entire nation.
You have to understand, as Mich say in his response above, that data access can be given to BLS without sharing SS. This is a totally bogus argument. I’m a software architect in the health care industry and I have build multiple systems which share information anonymously with third parties. It’s pretty trivial stuff. But we all agree that the constraint placed on government agencies are in the hands of congress, which does nothing. Anyway, just don’t use the anonymity argument as a valid libertarian justification. It’s totally bogus. We can and do anonimize data, just not in government it seems.
Thanks for your opinion from someone in the biz of software architecture.
But there are millions of small businesses all over the US with millions of employees changing jobs on a regular basis that are reporting wages and employment data quarterly (as required) through IRS form 941 because they don’t have HR departments to send such data more frequently to some centralized government agency that can then quickly and anonymously encrypt it (while cross-referencing the same employee data across multiple employers for dual employment households) for dissemination to markets.
Of course, encryption is possible. Of course, some anonymity is possible. But to collect and to provide such encrypted, anonymous data for millions of workers every month (when government offices and the markets want and publish the data) is not due simply to government edict or process. Ask DOGE.
So color me skeptical if you think you can scale your encrypted employer information system to an entire nation of 164 million employees spread over 36 million different businesses on a monthly basis.
Such a simple fix, but institutional inertia will prevent it from ever happening.
I invest in other countries, so I follow their economic environment. All in all, the US are the only country which reports seasonably adjusted, that is, tipped scales, figures. The other countries report year to year.
“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”
Key to economic decline in the US 103 million not participating in the workforce means that we are in a depression crash collapse or long term emergency
Not sure at all how you make the claim we’re in a “depression crash collapse” due this particular number of people not in the labor force
Look at the actual long-term data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS15000000
For decades this number has been steadily (not dramatically) increasing because the US working-age population and wealth is increasing over time
R U serious those people are not wealthy great depression 25 million out of work was a big deal we have about 3 X more people and doing that math means collap se
There was a sudden loss of 25 million employed people during the depression. Today’s103 million not participating have not been suddenly shown the door, and need to be compared to the non-participation rates of the late 1920’s / early 1930’s.
Several additional factors here too that make it not quite as appalling but I admit its bad..Some make a little money but under the table and or under the required Federal Tax filing limits. Plenty work in the underground economy for cash. And we have a lots of people in the “autistic” spectrum that are too addled to work or that have other disabilities.
And people who gave up because it is hard to get a job
If the numbers the government are releasing are bad, imagine how bad things actually are in real life.
Potential next post: “What % of Trump’s touted $18TT investments in the USA actually exist?”
How many cancelled previous plans to manufacture here because of the lack of reliable cost structures?
with trump i’d move the decimal point over one or two.
Peter Navarro Blames Horrific Jobs Report On Undocumented Workers
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-team-blames-dismal-jobs-numbers-on-spike-in-deportations/ar-AA1W5j3d
Navarro: “I admit Trump assaulted his own economic reports”
That’s makes no logical sense. If an illegal took someone’s job and someone lost a job, those two things balance out. But even if true, shouldn’t the deportation of illegals cause a ton of job openings? Why is the JOLTS down? Why isn’t employment surging?
I know this Navarro guy has a double whammy: boomer (mental decline) and MAGA (double dumb) but the math doesn’t add up.
HA HA HA. TRUE
This is funny because Trump was bragging about it.
Trump brags about everything. Unfortunately for America the entire world is seeing through him and equating Americans with our thoughtless PedoOTUS.
Trump seems to have taken rather strongly to heart a bit of advice (from therapists and suchlike people) that was current when he and I were both young – I am about his age. The advice was quite simply to brag, to contradict the perhaps rather pervasive tendency of people in authority in those days to tell those under them that they were stupid, lazy, dishonest and unproductive.
You replied that, on the contrary, you were bright, well informed, hard-working, and highly ethical. And you told stories to prove it.
All of these sorts of formulas seem to have their downside. But I think older people make allowances for Trump’s departures from the strict truth. At least he does have a personality, which is more than I would say for a lot of politicians. They resemble Peter Keating in Ayn Rand’s novel, “The Fountainhead.” Ironically, we in Australia had a politician, Prime Minister for a while, named Paul Keating, who had a somewhat similar personality or lack thereof – not quite as marked perhaps.
the term is nihilism. the west adopted it from bismark in late 1800s.
ps the objectivists are the ultimate nihilists. like ayn rand……….please read ominous parallels by an objectivist. explains what happened. watch century of self, free on youtube. 4 part doc.
The lizard of OZ, yes we haven’t forgotten him here.
PRO TIP democracy has always worked. trump is amerikan as apple pie. it ain’t complicated old sport. just ugly. requires folks to take a group photo with their families and friends and neighbors and be real. or one huge mirror.
None of us are doing anything effective to get rid of him, so we deserve it. He’s a fat, old, weak, incontinent man, ffs, how hard can it be to drag him out?