The unemployment rate is unchanged at 4.3 percent for 3 months.
Understanding the Lead Chart
If you have seen this explanation, please skip to down to the subtitle “My Charts” to continue reading.
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 (first 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 admitted nonsense.
The experimental series is LNS16000000, “Employment Adjusted to CES Concepts“.
For 2024, the BLS admits that it undercounted employment by 2 million. Instead of parsing that out in the correct months, the BLS plowed the entire adjustment into January of 2025.
For 2025, the BLS admits that it overcounted employment by 1.4 million. Instead of parsing that out in the correct months, the BLS plowed the entire adjustment into January of 2026.
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).
Moreover, there is no valid historical data on full vs parttime employment, on foreign born employment, and many other BLS data series. And there won’t be. There are no back adjustments key data components.
All posts on foreign-born employment, parttime employment, etc., suffer this flaw. All year-over-year (or December-to January) analysis you find on these stats is permanently flawed.
2025 Experimental Data
In April, the BLS released Experimental series accounting for January 2026 population control effects.
(Official CPS estimates for December 2025 and earlier months have not been revised, in accordance with usual practice.)
Experimental Series
In 2025, BLS produced new experimental time series measures to account for the size and timing of the large population changes reflected in the January 2025 population control adjustment.
The experimental series use the monthly time series (back to April 2020) available from the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 population estimates that form the basis of the January 2026 CPS population control adjustment.
The experimental series are smoother over time, as they do not show the annual effects of the population control adjustments that occur each January in the official series.
The experimental series adjusts data back to April 2020, the decennial census reference point.
Standard vs More Accurate Experimental Data
- Between December 2024 and January 2025, the standard data shows an increase of 2,245,000. The adjusted data shows a gain of 692,000.
- For December 2025, the employment level is a reported 163,992,000 vs the adjusted data at 162,557,000.
- By December 2025, the standard data employment level was overstated by 1,365,000. That did not happen in a single month. It was the result of cumulative months of bad data every month for a full year.
All standard year-over-year household data comparisons are nonsense. Comparisons between January and December of the prior year are also invalid.
My Charts
I will continue to use what the BLS refers to as “experimental data” because the official series household data is admitted nonsense.
Here are the latest, and undoubtedly wrong monthly job report details.
Monthly Job Report Details
- Nonfarm Payroll: +172,000 to 159,001,000 – Establishment Survey
- Civilian Non-institutional Population: +99,000 to 275,054,000
- Civilian Labor Force: +83,000 to 170,078,000 – Household Survey
- Participation Rate: +0.0 to 61.8% – Household Survey
- Employment:+149,000 to 162,771,000 – Household Survey
- Unemployment: -66,000 to 7,307,000 – Household Survey
- Baseline Unemployment Rate: +0.0 to 4.3% – Household Survey
- Not in Labor Force: +17,000 to 104,976,000 – Household Survey
- U-6 unemployment: -0.1 to 8.1% – Household Survey
Nonfarm Payrolls Change by Sector
Nonfarm Payrolls Change by Sector in Thousands
- Nonfarm Payrolls: +172
- Manufacturing: +7
- Construction: +17
- Leisure and Hospitality:+70
- Private Education and Health Care: +40
- Professional and Business Services: +6
- Information: -22
- Financial: -1
- Retail: -4
- Wholesale: -4
- Government: +52
Government Jobs Breakdown
- State: -4
- Federal: +1
- Local: +55
Monthly Revisions
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised up by 29,000, from +185,000 to +214,000
- The change for April was revised up by 64,000, from +115,000 to +179,000.
- With these revisions, employment in March and April combined is 93,000 higher than previously reported.
This is a rare upward revision to jobs.
Part-Time Jobs
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: -137,000 to 4,805,000
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: +147,000 to 22,853,000
- Total Full-Time Work: -69,000 to 134,173,000
- Total Part-Time Work: +266,000 to 28,679,000
- Multiple Job Holders: -6,000 to 8,428,000
The above numbers never total correctly due to the way the BLS makes seasonal adjustments. I list them as reported.
These numbers are highly unreliable for reasons noted above. Year-over-year comparisons are invalid, period.
Hours and Wages
- Average weekly hours of all private employees was flat at 34.3 hours.
- Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at at 33.2 hours.
- Average weekly hours of manufacturers was flat hours to 40.4 hours.
A tenth of an hour does not sound like much. But multiplied across 158 million, that’s a lot of hours.
Of course, this data is only as good as the data collection.
Hourly Earnings
This data is also frequently revised. Here are the numbers as reported this month.
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.12 to $37.53. A year ago the average wage was $36.28 That’s a gain of 3.4%.
Average hourly earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Workers rose $0.11 to $32.23. A year ago the average wage was $31.20. That’s a gain of 3.3%.
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 8.2 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.
The entire series is flawed by non-applied annual benchmark revisions.
The series is also flawed by poor response rates, deportations, illegals not answering phones, sampling errors and non-sampling errors.
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.
Foreign-Born Employment
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 nonsense.
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.
More Huge Negative Revisions Are Coming
Q: How do we know that?
A: Highly accurate but lagging QCEW and Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data show what’s coming.
For details, please see my May 4 post Net Job Creation by New Businesses Is Negative Once Again
More jobs are lost in closing businesses than gained in new businesses.
The Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data shows a net loss of 159,000 jobs for 2025 Q3 and a net loss of 321,000 jobs for 2025 Q2.
Negative numbers are not the norm outside of recessions.
The BED and QCEW reports are very accurate but lagging. This is why we know more negative revisions are coming.
Also note Manufacturing Is the Biggest Net Loser in Jobs, 5 Quarters Total
Here’s a breakdown of BLS Business Employment Dynamics (BED) by sector.
For more manufacturing charts click on the above link.
Final Thoughts
The BLS monthly data is garbage.I do the best with BLS data that I can, or anyone can.
The quarterly QCEW and Business Employment (BED)reports represent a 96 percent sample. But those reports lag by about 5 months.
The QCEW reports have been hugely negative and there is every reason to believe QCEW trends will continue.
The Birth-Death model that feeds the monthly jobs report is bogus. It has been screwed up since Covid, first underreporting jobs then overreporting them.
QCEW and BED data show more jobs are now being lost in closing businesses than gained in new businesses.
Annual revisions have been lower for two consecutive years. And the QCEW and BED reports show more negative revisions are likely. See links below.
Perhaps today’s report is accurate, but there is no valid reason to believe so.
Related Posts
February 11, 2026: BLS Revises Nonfarm Payrolls for 2025 Lower by 1 Million Jobs
For the second year, the BLS annual benchmark revision was hugely negative.
February 27, 2026: BLS Private Payrolls for 2025 Q2 Overstated by ~847,000
The Business Employment Dynamics report shows -321,000 vs Payroll report +526,000. Believe BED.
May 4, 2026: Net Job Creation by New Businesses Is Negative Once Again
More jobs are lost in closing businesses than gained in new businesses.
May 5, 2026: Manufacturing Is the Biggest Net Loser in Jobs, 5 Quarters Total
Here’s a breakdown of BLS Business Employment Dynamics (BED) by sector.
I get the sneaky feeling that these were your usual fake numbers. They made it out to be strong but didn’t take in to consideration what that means in terms of possible FED rate hikes due to ongoing inflation.
On the upside, at least now the Fed will have to pay some attention to the soaring inflation they’ve been repeating the pandemic playbook on. “Just look at these numbers!” doesn’t buy groceries.
I’d also say that this continuing across administrations is a sign of a much deeper, fundamental issue. The cost of living is getting America closer to a feudal state by the day. You pay most of your income to preserve your access to basic shelter, food, and healthcare, or in some cases you to into debt just to keep living.
If anyone here would like to explain to me how being in debt just to survive at a basic, barely above poverty level, isn’t slavery, I’d love to hear you. Currently the only argument I’ve ever heard is roughly akin to, “why don’t they just eat nothing but bread and drink nothing but water so they can save up for 30 years?” An argument that totally ignores fanciful things like “healthcare” and “transportation”, which poor people can always go further into debt for.
Now you’re getting it. It brings a tear to my eye to see people blossom into reality. And now you must take the next step to do what will make everything better for you because no one is going to save you, no one.
Got exit strategy?
Exit strategy? I don’t see zoomers running away, actually. It’s a bit controversial but I’d argue zoomers represent a big shift because they are the first generation since boomers that seems to be angry and willing to engage in politics.
Boomers get much of the blame, but a lot of that lies more on the extremely complacent millennial and Gen X crowd who—unlike boomers—did not stand up for anything nearly as important as the civil rights movement, the anti war movement, etc. All of which were the bedrock the formerly functional USA was built on.
My prediction? FDR style or even Huey Long (go Google that man) style “every man a king” socialism returns with a vengeance. The excesses of corporations have gotten so bad that even a libertarian capitalist blog like this is full of people complaining about how lawless they are. I can’t think of a clearer indicator that most people now on some level agree that companies can’t be allowed to act like governments. Polling shows the vast majority of both parties wants an end to gerrymandering, money in politics, and the rampant corruption Trump has come to symbolize.
The real question is how hard the trust busting and anti fraud brigades will have to work to unscrew this formerly glorious union and walk it back from the edge of a real disaster.
To buy a home, it’s recommended that your “Mortgage Payment” be less than 30% of your gross monthly income. It’s also recommended that your overall “Debt Level” should not exceed 35% of your gross monthly income. So let’s use that as the Rule.
With that being said, add up your rent/mortgage, along with monthly Healthcare, Food, Energy, Water and Insurances. And see if you can do so. That is the Countries/Leaders level spouted to get a loan from the banks for your new mortgage, if you can keep it…
– If anyone here would like to explain to me how being in debt just to survive at a basic, barely above poverty level, isn’t slavery, I’d love to hear you. > It is the “Got You” moment!! Once they have you in debt for your home, many are behind everything else moving forward. Remember it’s the Banks that said you were good to go, and handed you the money, and said go get the keys. Got Ya!
Many lose their vehicle first (sold), or it gets repossessed. All in a useless attempt at keeping that home. Then comes some surprise medical bills, and you’re there anyway. Oh, and that’s Government (Affordable) Healthcare isn’t it? Hmm… Banks and Healthcare onboard, so what’s in it for them? Need Food, Water and Energy, so that’s not negotiable. Maybe a forced time for a roommate, but you don’t want to go there, but you’re on the edge. Options running low, but you’re not quite there yet. Take out a HELOC perhaps, or borrow against it in some way. Need to keep that house… ultimately ending in foreclosure and the Banks take it back. Oh, and that same Government/bank, will give you a loan for another one in 10 years, under the same scenario and guise…
I would say in many instances You are 100% Correct!!!
Thank you, I think your agreement helps prove my point: Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, from all political walks of life can see this is a colossal, fundamental issue facing the nation. Yet there are crickets.
Democrats do not want to bite the hand that feeds, they just want to return to their Biden era norm of telling the poor to eat their vegetables and suck it up that got Trump elected. They actively seek to crush any reformists in their ranks by telling them “just get with the party! Just compromise!” and chuckling as any progressives get labeled socialist communists and written off.
Republicans haven’t cared at all for decades. They are openly a party of the corrupt for the corrupt, and that’s a party you’re not invited to unless you’ve been on Little Saint James before the fun stopped. They got their mitts on all three branches of government as outraged voters either stayed home or flipped in the face of Democrats telling everyone to get over Gaza and work for free or else. Now the entire country is on the ropes and the pedophiles just keep swinging, all while whining about trans people and illegal boogeymen.
Unless Americans get over the party affiliations and take their nation and government back, I just don’t see this ending well for anyone involved. If even people as different as you and me can see it, others eventually have to agree to stop fighting and put an end to this.
Healthcare you can always get basic for free in the er. The cost gets passed on
People dropping out of the workforce (except of actual retirement) IS unemployment.
Why are labor statistics constantly allowed to be distorted like this?
Because the government is run by criminals, and We the People allow it.
“Civilian Non-institutional Population: +99,000 to 275,054,000”
Wow! A 0.44% annualized population growth rate! Look out below! Maybe Congress should stop carefully crafting the perfect dystopia.
My 18 year old niece tried really hard about a year ago to get any sort of job (including fast food) with no luck. She is of above average intelligence and has plenty of experience with building and repairing things, but she has now decided that she does not want to work, not want to go to college, not want to learn to drive. Her mom, my brother’s widow, can support them both as a schoolteacher, and support their horse as well (as long as they do the horse care themselves). Other than the horse, the niece has no interest in owning anything other than her Xbox. She thinks guys are creepy so marriage is not a likely option.
I remember when there were no jobs in the very early 80s. It really affected my view of what to expect.
I have no idea what to say to her when I visit soon. Maybe I’ll just ask how things are going. The world is so weird right now that perhaps her present plans are fine.
I had a kid with a similar problem after graduating college. She looked for 8 months and finally landed an office job. In the meantime we told her to go volunteer and she did so at various places, it kept her motivated and contributing rather than sitting at home.
Yes, volunteering is a good idea. She’s a nice kid; very good to her grandmother and likes animals.
how ordinary
Yes, it is pretty ordinary now for girls to find guys to be creepy. I wonder why.
This is another big issue, kids are realizing they have no future in this system and either giving up or getting mad and vowing to tear it down. I can’t blame the latter, but the former should realize they’re burning valuable time.
It was so different when I was her age. You could plan on things that you can’t plan on now.
Fail! I was expecting a 1500% increase, for this is the Golden Age.
Real numbers are what you see right in front of you. One of the Large hardware store weekly sales has gone from over $1million a month last year to a disasterous $300,000 last week was the worst $167,000 Guess what happened to employees. Finding parking is a breeze at Costco, Wall Mart, Superstore or Malls.
Son has been driving concrete truck for years and now has only 2 to 3 shifts aweek.
NEVER TRUST GOVERNMENT NUMBERS they are fabricated in the BORED room while sitting on a toilet seat As the BS comes out. Then they get ass wipe and Revise the numbers.
Really where in the USA is this? Completely the opposite in NYC where the stores and sidewalk are so crowded anyday of the week. Even as stores close locations across the USA, they are expanding in NYC
A crowd of a thousand sardines don’t see 20 missing.
No doubt, the increase in payrolls is due to taco’s ill-fated economic and war policies.
As I have been saying, demographic death spiral. 10,000+ boomers will continue to retire every day until 2030 when all of them will be over 65. That alone should cause employment demand to rise but add to it that not enough young people are being born and the millenials and gen z that do work have an entirely different work attitude that is more like 4/5 of an actual worker because they only give 80% at best.
This mismatch in low births / high retirements will smack the labor market in the face hard. AI can help with some of it in the white collar space but AI ain’t going to be tripping pipe out in the oil field nor changing diapers of the elderly in nursing homes nor all the other physical labor jobs out there (e.g. construction).
https://broadbandbreakfast.com/javier-palomarez-and-jim-enrique-tolbert-americas-manufacturing-boom-faces-a-labor-bust/
Throw in the racist/bigot anti-immigrant policies of Trump and you have…
Trump & Walrus turtles all the way down and inflation all the way up!
Do worry, Trump & Walrus will find a way to make things even worse.™
Oh and I forgot to mention that people born after 1970 seem to be far less healthier than generations before so factor that crisis into it as well.
https://studyfinds.com/americans-born-after-1970-dying-faster/
Because everyone uses a car to travel anywhere farther than 500 ft , and order Door dash, Uber eats or GrubHub for every meal
“millenials and gen z that do work have an entirely different work attitude that is more like 4/5 of an actual worker because they only give 80% at best.”
Perhaps because they get paid 80% of what they should at best? I think we had an enlightening article about real wages just the other day, and the 55k my grandfather was making with his GED in the sixties is now worth more with inflation than I’m making with a master’s I’m making payments on. All of those surplus wages going to pay for social security, of course.
Hard to give 100% when all it does is make some rich prick richer.
Slackers of the world, unite!
In the 1960’s the U.S. was producer to the world. Now, China is. The whole dynamic has changed from then to now.
Hollywood has not recovered from the strikes a few years ago. TV shows can be filmed elsewhere now, unlike the 1960’s. It is cheaper to produce out of town.
I’d argue that’s not entirely true. We still produce plenty, and we never made that much more cheap stuff than now, the volume just changed.
The issue is that thanks to failed actor Ronald McDonald Reagan, we stopped enforcing the laws on the books on companies and started looking the other way. China does now allow companies to flout the rule of law like ours, and the era of Chinese sweatshops has been in decline for a while. Nowadays China looks more like we used to and we look increasingly like they used to.
One of these countries is growing a new middle class, investing in education, and building infrastructure at breathtaking pace; the other is cannibalizing their middle class and telling them to work in the farm fields, axing higher education for “woke” ideas like vaccines, and destroying infrastructure to feed their stumbling military. Guess which is which.
Gen z gets Money from parents, how else can these barely out of highschool and college kids afford $1500 coats and $100 hoodies
You must not know many kids, but that’s a given.
You know how this works: markets rally/cheer good jobs numbers; markets ignore/disregard the subsequent massive revision. Lather rinse repeat.
It’s the labor version of the earnings game. Estimate quarter-ahead numbers, revise downward, as necessary, throughout the quarter, beat the final number, report the “beat” where the “beat” is the same or lower than the first estimate, which Wall Street also cheered.
Hence massive annual gains forever.
The entire U.S. economic and political climate is one giant cocked hat.
I think this report sucks. Leisure and Hospitality:+70, Private Education and Health Care: +40, and Government: +52 combined contribute 162.000 jobs of the total and do not contribute to adding wealth to the nation, maybe detract from wealth building.