The discrepancy between jobs reports and quarterly data widens again.
QCEW vs Nonfarm Payrolls
QCEW stands for Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers covering more than 95 percent of U.S. jobs, available at the county, MSA, state and national levels by industry.
The QCEW consists of 12.2 million establishments in the first quarter of 2024.
QCEW is 95 percent coverage of jobs. The Nonfarm payroll report surveys ~629,000 establishments with a response rate of 42.6 percent as of March 2025.
Thus, QCEW is a less timely but far more accurate representation of the labor market than the monthly nonfarm payroll jobs report.
New QCEW Data
Today the Department of Labor released Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for the first quarter of 2025.
The data is not seasonally adjusted but it could be and should be. Monthly data is only available on hard to locate forms.
Note the widening discrepancy between the QCEW data and the monthly nonfarm payroll reports.
Nonfarm Payrolls Gone Haywire
BLS Problems on Steroids
The BLS always has problems at economic turns, but the chart shows problems on steroids.
Something went seriously wrong with BLS nonfarm payroll reports after the covid pandemic.
In July of 2021, the BLS reported a year-over-year change of 7.5 million jobs. QCEW reported 8.7 million jobs. The BLS was low by 1.2 million jobs.
For March of 2025, the BLS reports a year-over-year change of 1.79 million jobs. QCEW reports 675,000 jobs. The BLS is now high by 1.115 million jobs.
QCEW vs Nonfarm Payrolls SA and NSA
The above chart shows the problem with working with unadjusted data. Month-over-month comparisons are only valid for seasonally adjusted data.
For unadjusted data, one must compare to the same month a year ago.
I do not have seasonal adjustments for the current quarter. The above seasonal adjustments are courtesy of Piper Sandler.
For December 2024, the BLS reported 158.942 million jobs. QCEW reported 155.386 million jobs. That’s a difference of 3.556 million. Only a portion of that is valid.
QCEW excludes proprietors, the unincorporated self-employed, unpaid family members, certain farm and domestic workers, and railroad workers covered by the railroad unemployment insurance system. Also excluded are elected officials in the executive or legislative branch, members of the armed forces or the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Neither QCEW nor CES include self-employed persons in their counts. Both BLS and QCEW may double count individuals with multiple jobs.
The numbers are not directly comparable but the trends sure are. Note the widening gap between seasonally adjusted numbers that did not exist pre-pandemic.
The Department of Labor could easily provide seasonal adjustments. It should, but doesn’t. I will post the adjusted numbers when I get them.
But the trends remain obvious in my lead, unadjusted chart. More steep negative revisions to the BLS monthly jobs reports are coming up. That’s the important takeaway.
Related Posts
August 2, 2025: Did Trump Fire the BLS Head for Cause, Being the Messenger, or Something Else?
A case can be made for all three. But there’s a clear winner.
September 3, 2025: The Unemployment Level Is Now Greater than Job Openings
For the first time since the pandemic unemployment is above openings.
The nonfarm payroll response rate is 42.6 percent with the same issues as with JOLTS
September 4, 2025: Year-Over-Year Small Business Employment Growth Barely Above Zero
ADP reports the total YOY small business growth as +19,000.
September 5, 2025: Jobs Report Misery: Only 22,000 Gain in August, June Revised to -13,000
August was a bad month for job seekers. Here are the grim details.
September 5, 2025: Since January 2023, BLS Jobs Revisions Were Negative 24 Out of 31 Times
Witness negative revisions 77 percent of the time, with more coming.
Anyone who says the labor market is strong is totally clueless. The economy is now cooling rapidly.
As I related the other day, my friend is closing one of his US machining plants and is opening a new plant in Canada because of the tariffs on the aluminum billets he machines aircraft parts out of.
OK, it is only 14 jobs, 12 machinists and 2 secretaries, but these guys are skilled and making over $120k including benefits.
Spin it any way you want, but those parts are now going to be made in Canada. By Canadians that pay taxes in Canada and the loss to our community is over 2 million dollars of income.
What I learned today that is really interesting? They were Trump voters.
“They were stupid Trump voters.”
Fixed it for you. But hey, they sacrificed their own livelihood to MAGA, kudos I guess. Looks like the workers had an exit strategy for their employer….lol.
I’m having a hard time imagining a smart Trump voter. Can you think of an example?
Someone who owns crypto?
“smart”
The U.S. is losing thousands of manufacturing jobs, analysis finds
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jobs-manufacturing-trump-tariffs-economy/
The rate of change y/y was constant at 2,500K between 2016 and Oct 2019. It was down 22,500K between Jan and Apr 2020. Thereafter both added more than 2,500K every three months, ex between Oct 2020 and Jan 2021. In Q1 2021 both added 25,000K employees to a new high. Both are slowing down, adding less and less in 2025, but they are still adding, not shedding workers. Not yet. And if they will, for a while, it wouldn’t affect the total by much. The y/y change indicates that in Apr 2021 both QCEW and Nonfarm reached a new all time high. The QCEW and nonfarm other chart exceed 2019 high in May 2023. Something is wrong.
If I correct the total is way higher than 160 million.
When the BLS publishes fantasy statistics and gets found out, the head gets fired. I believe this is called accountability. I am starting to like this new idea for government.
Then let’s see the unredacted Epstein files.
Joe Biden’s AOG has seen them. Two grand juries have seen them.
If there was really bad stuff in there about Trump, it would have come out already.
That’s called an inconvenient truth for a reason.
I guess you missed that lesson in high school.
Biden can’t release them now. Trump can. Why hasn’t he?
This is not about Trump. It’s about full-system accountability.
There are a lot of overdue perp-walks, and not just re: Epstein.
Puta, Epstein whores will get millions.
I can’t think of a single head that rolled under Biden.
If you think of one, post it back here or anyone else for that matter.
Biden can’t do shit now. Trump needs to release the evidence. For some reason he doesn’t want to. I wonder why that might be?
The U.S. House of Economic Cards is built on Government quicksand . . . just think of all those investment decisions that were made on completely false data over the years . . . .
I’m interested. What investment decisions were those? Got a list?
The IRS publishes the number of taxpayers that paid withholding taxes. While it is not the most encompassing employment statistic, should it not be viewed as a benchmark to compare reported trends with?
Its better than all these revisions because the BLS uses guesstimates . . .
Where is this published? Can’t find it. They should be able to publish that monthly.
Remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the economy imploded and the oligarchs scooped up public assets at bargain basement prices, creating enormous monopolies in basic commodities like aluminum (Oleg Deripaska) and a permanent class of gangster capitalist overlords? The Trump machinery is collapsing the US economy on purpose.
The problem there is that states are pretty individualist and very very well armed. I’d love to see an oligarch try to tame Dixie where they’ve been waiting for a rematch as long as they can all remember. Not a thought though given how shortsighted MAGA seems to be.
All they gotta do to claim Dixie is shove non white people into camps.
Yes, they are doing it on purpose.
Yes, the US jobs collapse started in the Biden admin near the end of a 1982 to 2026 13/33 year :: x/2.5x cycle – now merely a talking point … Biden large % GDP deficit spending was mostly good for US GDP growth – yet notably the money spent to facilitate mass migration is a real sore point for most US voters … including this one… While the current US 2025 estimated deficit to GDP spending is a sizable 6.2 %, a significant portion is going to pay for unneeded tax breaks for the UberRich who’s fathers and grandfather’s didn’t die in WW2 … and for the deportation police … with little to no benefit for US GDP growth and for the lower 99% … The tariffs and disruptions of solid alliances .. represent a deleterious multiplying effect … The first big cliff is at hand …
Jobs are collapsing because of AI+automation+robots. Expect the job loses to get much worse moving forward. Our economic model is being destroyed by AI.
I read somewhere today there is a coalition of businesses asking the SEC to drop quarterly financial reporting and instead only provide two updates per year.
More obfuscation of data at a time it’s all falling apart under Trump. Oh well, it was a good run wasn’t it. Global depression?
Got exit strategy?
Exit away. PLEASE…
Because of the magic of the Internet, he can trigger you from anywhere he goes.
There are plenty of inexpensive places right here in the US.
Cost is not the most important thing! Quality of life is ~ for me. Granted, we are all different and some chose to live in congested cities while others love the country life.
I have sent about 8 years out of the US in Australia, Costa Rica. Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil and Canada.
I can live anywhere I want, and chose the US.
We have it pretty good and it is easy to complain when you’re spoiled rotten!
MOST people move out of the country because they are looking for lower cost place to live.
QCEW reports employment and wages. If working hours are down 2hr/week (ex self employed hours which might be up, which QCEW don’t count), the spread between QCEW and nonfarm report will rise. QCEW distorts employment. It’s not more accurate.
The BLS always has problems at economic turns, but the chart shows problems on steroids.
And that’s why McEntarfer was let fired. She had lost control.
Now that we know 6 – 9 months after the fact, The Fed should have started to cut this past March.
It would not be the USA without a bunch of non-experts all claiming the experts (The Fed) are the dumbest of all of us on monetary policy.
I don’t think any of them are dumb, I think they are great actors pretending to be dumb or clueless. They understand who their real master is and the job they have been tasked with doing.
Think long and hard and you’ll find the nexus of it all.
It’s not for me to say because I’m not one to gossip.
LOL!
She gave no good explanation why the spread is so high.
It doesn’t take an expert to see how badly the BLS ship is sinking.
It doesn’t take an expert to see how late to the party the Fed is with cutting rates.
And you’re the pot calling the kettle black. Where’s HubrisEveryWhere, when you need him?
We all parade around like a bunch of experts.
At least in my case, I’m not being hypocritical about it like you are, you “non-expert” acting like he’s the smartest guy on-line.