The annual benchmark revisions for 2024 were huge. Changes from December to January are ridiculous as a result.
I discussed annual revisions in my previous post Huge BLS Benchmark Revisions Remove 610,000 Jobs From 2024
Jobs are the establishment survey. Employment and unemployment are household survey items.
The report for January does not show changes because the changes are bogus.
The BLS says “In accordance with normal practice” none of this will show up on historical data or charts.
With that, let’s dive into the January report. The next chart is particularly bad as noted above.
Nonfarm Payrolls and Employment Level
As explained above, those jumps did not suddenly happen.
Q: When did they happen?
A: We don’t know precisely because the BLS does not say, making the chart bogus.
However, the BLS does say “Without the revision, the employment gain would have been 176,000 instead of 2,234,000” as the chart shows.
Historical comparisons, especially year-over-year numbers, are bogus and I will remove them from this report.
Even with the revisions, full-time employment is not strong as the gap between payrolls and full-time employment is still shows.
Monthly Change in Nonfarm Payrolls
Nonfarm Payrolls Change by Sector
Excluding government, and private education an health services, this was a week report.
+61,000 Private Education and Health Services
Health care added 44,000 jobs in January, with gains in hospitals (+14,000), nursing and residential care facilities (+13,000), and home health care services (+11,000). Job growth in health care averaged 57,000 per month in 2024.
In January, employment in social assistance increased by 22,000, similar to its average monthly gain of 20,000 over the prior 12 months.
Demographics (aging population) and immigration explains the increase of 93,000 of the reported 143,000 jobs.
Change in Part-Time Jobs
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: ?
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: ?
- Total Full-Time Work: ?
- Total Part-Time Work: ?
- Multiple Job Holders: ?
I normally post month over month changes. I have no idea what they really are due to the benchmark revisions.
Multiple job holders add to nonfarm payrolls but not the number of employed.
Hours and Wages
This data is frequently revised.
- Average weekly hours of all private employees fell 0.1 hours to 34.1 hours.
- Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees fell 0.2 hours to 33.0 hours.
- Average weekly hours of manufacturers dropped 0.1 hour to 40.0 hours.
Last month I reported of all private employees was flat at 34.3 hours. This month I see a decline of 0.1 hours to 34.1 hours.
An overall decline or rise of a tenth of an hour does not sound line much, but with employment over 163 million, it’s more significant than it appears at first glance.
163.9 million * -0.2 = 32.78 million hours decline.
Hourly Earnings
This data is also frequently revised. Here are the numbers as reported this month.
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.17 to $35.87. A year ago the average wage was $34.47. That’s a gain of 4.1%.
Average hourly earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Workers rose $0.16 to $30.84. A year ago the average wage was $29.61. That’s a gain of 4.2%.
Unemployment Rate
The unemployment rate went from 4.1 percent to 4.0 percent. The BLS says the population revision impact was +0.1 percentage point making the month-over-month decline 0.2 percentage points.
The data is thus weaker in jobs and stronger in employment than shown.
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 4.0 percent.
- U-6 is much higher at 7.5 percent.
Since U3 declined but U6 didn’t, we can conclude the decline in the unemployment rate is all due to part-time jobs.
The significant decline in the number of hours worked says the same thing.
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 hype 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. That’s flawed.
However, it is now clear that the BLS is too optimistic about the number of jobs they believe are being created by the net creation of new businesses.
Quarterly QCEW Data Provides More Evidence of BLS Jobs Overstatement
On November 20, I commented Quarterly QCEW Data Provides More Evidence of BLS Jobs Overstatement
Hard evidence from QCEW report suggests more negative revisions coming for BLS nonfarm payroll report.
Today we saw some of the impact of QCEW filtering through benchmark revisions f in the establishment survey.
More revisions are coming. QCEW is only through 2024 Q2.
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.
Looking for job openings on Jooble or Monster or in the want ads does not count as “looking for a job”. You need an actual interview or send out a resume.
These distortions artificially lower the unemployment rate, artificially boost full-time employment, and artificially increase the payroll jobs report every month.
The BLS payroll reports smack of oversampling large employers and undersampling small employers where jobs have been trending lower.
Job Report Key Takeaways
- The massive benchmark revisions (jobs weaker and employment higher) distorts the historic data and graphs making year-over-year comparisons bogus.
- The decline in the average workweek of 0.2 hours is significant. 163.9 million employed * -0.2 is a 32.78 million hours total decline. That’s about a million jobs at a workweek of 33 hours.
- A breakdown of the reported job gains shows 93,000 of the 143,000 increase in jobs going to government (32,000) and private education an health services (61,000). This reflects aging demographics and illegal immigration, and is a definite weak point in the report.
Trumpian Uncertainty
The reduction in immigration plus deportations will impact the economy, labor markets, and wage growth in unpredictable ways.
The same applies to Trump’s firing and attempted firing of Federal government employees, and his tariffs applied, then taken back.
There is always uncertainty, but Trump has taken uncertainty that to new levels. That generally is not good for the markets.
Finally, there are inflationary and deflations aspects of Trump’s changes.
The range of economic outcomes varies from stagflation to debt deflation depending on what Trump does and how foreign leaders react.
Related Posts
January 10: Elon Musk Admits DOGE Can’t Find $2 Trillion In Budget Cuts
January 31, 2025: The BLS Confirms US is Now Losing Jobs in Net Business Creation
February 4, 2025: Job Openings Drop by 556,000 in December, Quits Show Job Finding Stress
February 5, 2025: ADP Payrolls Better than Expected But Two-Thirds of the Economy Has Stalled
February 7, 2025: Huge BLS Benchmark Revisions Remove 610,000 Jobs From 2024
Contrary to popular belief, this is not a strong economy. Uncertainty of Trump’s actions adds to the risk. And very few people believe a recession is even possible.
One thing I am very confident of is that Trump is unlikely to significantly reduce the deficit. He’s much more likely to significantly increase the deficit, DOGE or no DOGE.
In isolation, that’s stagflationary, but things are not in isolation.
DOGE is looking at the Dept. of Labor. Maybe they will shed some light on BLS.
Isn’t the “Story” always about “Revisions”?
Wrong. The big news, per Zero Hedge, is that, in January, 1,045,000 foreign born workers found jobs in the U.S., as compared to 8,000 U.S.born workers.
– Wrong. The big news, in January, 1,045,000 foreign born workers found jobs in the U.S., as compared to 8,000 U.S.born workers.
> Wrong. The big news, in January, 1,045,000 foreign born workers (Were Looking and Found Job’s) in the U.S. that nobody except a Paltry 8,000 U.S.born workers did?
>> If True… How do they exist? Why/How Did They? Why Didn’t The U.S.? I think questions abound here…
1. How many “Trust Fund” Babies exist?
2. Are Young and Working age Americans truly this Lazy?
3. Is Society truly this “Coddled”?
4. How Much$ do these Foreign Workers “Send Back” to there Countries?
5. If we are Truly this well off, then why do so many feel like they’re “Crashing”?
6. How much have “Back/Owed” Taxes “Increased” across the Nation, in the last 4 Years?
7. Why did the “Flow of Money” Stop?
8. Etc…
Mish, I don’t ever put too much emphasis on one monthly number (respectable +143K jobs added in January), but I was surprised you did not talk about the jobs revisions for November and December. Didn’t they add +100K combined? So with those positive revisions, that’s really an increase of a quarter million jobs ‘this month’.
And as your red line shows above, an average of 166K jobs added per month during 2024, after an average 210K+ jobs added per month in 2023, even with all the Boomer retirements.
What would it take for you to claim a ‘good’ or ‘strong’ jobs report?
I have many times stated the details are stronger than they look.
This month I have no idea about the change in part-time employment or where those.100K jobs were added. I doubt they were added at all. I would like to know when the rise in 2,000 employment happened and we do not know that either.
All I am sure of is a big increase in part time employment – dating to I don’t really know when.
The biggest improvement was something I just graphed now. A huge decline in those unemployed 15+ weeks. That is significant.
New executive order: all NGOs that received federal money will be audited thoroughly. Lawsuits coming.
1M CL downdraft was over in Oct, bc the banks stopped lending. They parked their money, your money, in 5%. Trump said: LEND. TSLA will rise to a new all time high. Backing up has nothing to do with the dems boycott.
As soon as we find all the people that won’t buy a Tesla, and make boycotting, the stock will go to the moon! See: X and the advertisers that dared to not do business with us!
I was out for a couple hours on errands. Has Trump repealed the personal income tax yet?
No, but he did outlaw vegetables. Some idiot made a joke about his manboobs.
Funny how the IRS and treasury can target conservative Tea Party member bank accounts, etc., for investigations and canceling and civil forfeiture but not the accounts and transactions of 30 million illegally employed aliens and their employers funding Mexican cartels etc. And funny how Mexican gun control laws always fail to stop Mexican “gun violence.”. .
Corporate offices and owners need to locked up on felony charges, law for the last 70 years since Eisenhower Admin. St. Ronnie gave the wink signal to look the other way 40 years go.
BLS = Bureau of Lying Statistics
The report is garbage in, garbage out (GIGO).
Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.
Since the fraudster Biden and his predecessors contributed to this charade, one can only imagine what the serial fraudster will do to ensure that this is the best economy ever since January 20, 2025.
DOGE infiltrated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today after President Trump fired its toxic director under Biden. Staffers are mad as hell. This is the agency that forced banks to give loans to illegal aliens. There is no stopping DOGE.
What nefarious dealings will Musk uncover? I think the unemployment lines in DC are going to get a lot longer.
The concept that government is going to protect consumers is laughable. When government provides a service and taxes you to pay for it, you have no protection from the government as the provider. Sure, you can spend a large portion of your dash fighting to change a law and get government out of something, but you have no ability to simply vote with your wallet and withdraw consent.
Don’t have kids? No need to consume education services? Too bad, Your property will be taxed at 2% or more of its value per annum to pay for a service you don’t need.
Have kids, and the public education you are taxed to pay for isn’t able to be consumed because a terrorist group called the teacher’s union wants more pay and more teachers? Too bad, you’ll still be taxed regardless of your inability to consume their inferior product that uses an inferior, inefficient delivery model from the 19th century.
Want to work? Then you are going to pay for OASDI and medical insurance that you will not consume for 40-50 years regardless of the fact that the programs are already financially insolvent.
Doctors confirm a spike in severe health issues among Trump’s detractors, mainly democrats, such as insomnia, chest pain, high blood pressure, panic and genuine outright fear. It’s believed this could be the start of greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country.
While the doctors didn’t officially label it Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), they recommended that these people turn their computers and televisions off to politics and instead concentrate on mending their relationships with family and friends.
Hate your countrymen… love me!
Since July 2018, the US labor force has added 4.6 million foreign-born workers, while the number of native-born workers has declined by nearly 700K.
That is pretty remarkable. The decline of 700k native-born workers!…the vax? (disability has spiked and all-cause mortality too, and employment-aged were the most vaxxed)
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/record%20foreign%20bodn%20native%20born.jpg?itok=osmhkeaa
Boomers retired. That trend has been going for a while now.
The number of native-born Americans working rose substantially and steadily from 2012-2019.
Boomers didn’t retire. Corporations won’t hire people over age fifty. It’s called age discrimination.
Just wait till I get millions more h1bs over here … those are rookie numbers.
Yield on the 10 year is up 5 bps. Is there something inflationary within these reports?
Trump announced more tariffs on yet to be name countries. It’s not known yet how long it will take Trump to cave.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-told-gop-lawmakers-he-plans-announce-reciprocal-tariffs-early-friday-2025-02-07/
Pay
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.17 to $35.87
Tariff announcements
More H1Bs would solve this problem handily.
Stronger economic employment numbers than expected.
Inflation is the major mid-term concern now (over unemployment), so lenders have to be compensated
Here we go! Based on recommendations from DOGE, the Department of Justice is launching investigations into individuals who are believed to have committed fraud or theft of government property. Meanwhile, Democrats continue to do everything they can to try to stop DOGE. They can run, but they can’t hide.
DOGE. Winning.
DOGE ain’t gonna do Jack Doogie
But they just did. Once again.
Haha… just wait till you see the 2025 deficit!
What we’re really doing isn’t the part you see.
TSLA is backing up and down under Nov 2021 high @414.50. Nothing to do with the liberals revenge.
The liberals are clearly to blame for boycotting my cars, which is illegal!
Did BLS deleted from Biden’s 1.6 millions gov jobs to be replaced by Trump’s millions of small and mid satellite jobs, serving 16 must have industries in the US, precision bombing of imports and the globalists amygdala.
Is there anyone who still believes anything coming out of these BLS benchmarks? If yes, I have a bridge to sell you.
SO….either the system as reported is nothing but a bogus, fraudulent guess, or it is being gamed. In any case, if it were me, i would fire those responsible, and find those that will make it work, including a redefinition of what we intend to do and how. Running this numbers scam, reevaluation, adjusting on the fly and not documenting it clearly does no one any real service. This should be a clear numbers report, with no partisan input.
You must be new or not paying attention to financial news. This annual adjustment is made by the BLS every year on this exact same week; was done the same under Trump and Presidents before him.
It drives Mish nuts, too, every year. But it’s not partisan – just a byproduct of statistical analysis without actual data available
No! It’s CLEARLY a conspiracy!
The revisions went back more than 10yrs and did not bother doing a deeper dive I just downloaded the series back far enough not to see changes in back data, The Household Survey was a surprise pop and that was out of sequence of its flat reporting for a 3yrs. I am giving both some time for the new administration to normalize this data.Employment is only one of multiple economic series and the others have not signaled the oft-predicted recession that has yet to ensue. Perhaps Musk’s wizards can run algorithms on Fed data to sort it out so it can become more trustworthy.They are doing an incredible job of unmasking malfeasance elsewhere. https://SUBSTACK.COM/HOME/POST/P-156548911
Both of your notes today have been exceptional at looking at the mixed data today.
Thanks Much
CNBC ~ 25 years ago: “anything can happen and it probably will.”
Revisions will spike when DOGE audits Commerce Department.