A graph that compares the previously released monthly change in jobs with revisions that show that jobs grew less in most months.
Cumulative change in
jobs since February 2020
Cumulative change in
jobs since February 2020
The job growth was weaker in 2023 and 2024 then initially reported, but the large annual revisions were not as bad as provisional estimates had suggested.
The wage lists reported every month come from a study among thousands of companies and other employers. Once a year, the labor department rewears those estimates to reconcile with more accurate but less timely data from the unemployment insurance offices of the state.
This year's revision was unusually large. According to the updated data, employers added about 655,000 fewer jobs in 2023 and 2024 than previously estimated. It was the largest downward revision since 2009.
Nevertheless, the revision was smaller than expected: in August the labor department published a provisional estimate that shows that the monthly surveys had exaggerated the acceptance of 818,000 jobs.
And although the growth of the jobs was weaker than earlier estimates, the revisions did not do much to change the general picture of a strong labor market. Employers added 2.6 million jobs in 2023 and two million in 2024. Over four years in function of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of the pandemic.
While the big whole changed little, the new data revealed some more important shifts under the surface. Job growth was faster in health care and the government than previous reports, which is remarkable because those sectors were already responsible for a disproportionate share of recent profit. The growth in retail work and temporary emergency services was highly lowered.
The new figures also help to solve a mystery: the research among employers had shown considerably stronger job profit in recent years than an alternative measure for work based on a study among households. But the combination of the downward revision of the growth of the employer research and a large upward adjustment to employment in the household research – which was linked to the estimates of the new census agency – largely closed the gap between the two measures.
