What the revisions show about past job growth
When looking at the monthly jobs report, it’s important to keep in mind that data is volatile, it is fluid, and it will be revised as more comprehensive information becomes available.
“It’s difficult to get an accurate first-time read on the labor market, so we always want to have some healthy skepticism,” Josh Hirt, senior US economist at Vanguard, told CNN on Friday. “It is very common that these do get revised.”
And, considering the establishment survey had a response rate of 62% (versus 68% last year), the outsized gains will likely get cut back in future months, Pantheon Macroeconomics economists noted Friday.
The monthly estimates are considered preliminary when first published, because not all respondents report their payroll data in time. Those survey-based estimates are revised twice further and then held constant until the Bureau of Labor Statistics applies its robust “benchmarking” process to square the estimates with quarterly tax filings.
With that in mind, on Friday we learned that July’s previously weak job gains that cratered markets weren’t as bad as initially feared: After coming in at 114,000 and then getting revised down to 89,000, the final revision came in at 144,000.
August’s 142,000 job gains were revised up by 17,000 to 159,000.
While most of the jobs reports have been downwardly revised in recent months, the last time there was a similarly big upward revision to the two preceding months’ reports was in September 2023, BLS data shows.
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