US Job Growth Overstated by 911,000 in 12 Months Ending March 2025

Downward revisions in the private sector totaled 880,000.

A 'Now Hiring' sign at a coffee shop in Greensboro, N.C., on Sept. 19, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Employment growth was revised lower in the year that ended in March, indicating a weaker labor market that began before President Donald Trump’s trade agenda.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ national preliminary benchmark revision report, job growth was overstated by 911,000 in the year that ended in March, representing a 37 percent decline from the initial estimate of approximately 2.4 million new jobs.

The annual benchmark revisions use more comprehensive data from the Quarterly Census of Employment Wages. By using this information, bureau officials can eliminate inaccuracies, correct biases, or rely on more comprehensive data from more than 11 million businesses.

The final report, which will face further revisions, will be released in February 2026.

In recent years, the report has revealed sizable downward adjustments in employment data.

The bureau reported in August 2024 that job growth was overstated by 818,000 from April 2023 to March 2024, the second-largest downward revision on record and the largest since the global financial crisis.

Revisions have become a considerable issue at the federal agency.

After initially reporting 147,000 new jobs in June, two updates highlighted that the U.S. payrolls declined by 13,000. This marked the first monthly job loss since December 2020 and brought the three-month average to 29,000.

Deteriorating data quality has been a cause for concern among economic observers, as employment figures can affect numerous aspects of the broader economy, from monetary policy to the stock market.

Experts cite a range of factors, including limited survey participation, reporting delays, and outdated statistical models, as contributing to the bureau’s challenges in producing consistently accurate employment data.

Stephen Miran, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and Federal Reserve Board nominee, said that the bureau needs “an overhaul and fresh pair of eyes.”

“There’s two issues at play. One is declining response rates over time, and two is an inability—refusal—to do something to correct those declining response rates,” Miran said at last week’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.

“BLS leadership did nothing to arrest the deterioration in data quality.”

Shortly after the July jobs report, which showed two-month revisions totaling 258,000, President Donald Trump terminated bureau commissioner Erika McEntarfer. Days later, he nominated Heritage Foundation Chief Economist E.J. Antoni.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said the latest numbers give “the American people even more reason to doubt the integrity of data being published by BLS.”

In a statement published shortly after the revisions were released, she said that the bureau’s leaders “failed to improve their practices during the Biden administration.” By relying on outdated methods, the federal agency has “rendered a once reliable system completely ineffective ... calling into question the motivation behind their inaction,” Chavez-DeRemer said.

“Considering these reports are the foundation of economic forecasts and major policy decisions, there is no room for such a significant and consistent amount of error,” she said. “It’s imperative for the data to remain accurate, impartial, and never altered for political gain.”

She committed to improving the bureau’s data-gathering practices to ensure that the system becomes reliable again.

Jobs and the Fed

Economists are now examining the overall labor market.

“The labor market is coming to a standstill as businesses slow the pace of hiring and await clarity on tariffs and Fed policy,” Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.

This will likely prompt the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates at the policy meeting later this month, Roach noted.

“The labor data is probably not weak enough for the Fed to cut by 50 basis points given inflation persistence, so as of now, our expectations are for a 25 basis point cut,” he said.

New CME FedWatch Tool data suggest that investors are betting on a 92 percent chance of a quarter-point rate cut. Fewer than 10 percent anticipate a half-point reduction to the key policy rate.

In his final Jackson Hole keynote address, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the U.S. labor market was in “a curious kind of balance.”

“This unusual situation suggests that downside risks to employment are rising,“ Powell said. ”And if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.”

The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will hold its policy meeting on Sept. 16 and 17.

Because the revisions were widely anticipated, there was little movement on Wall Street.