Final Tuesday (September 9, 2025), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed a information launch – Preliminary benchmark revision for March payroll employment is -911,000 (-0.6%) – which instructed us that its employment estimates for the present yr are more likely to be considerably overstated. Provided that the BLS has been beneath intense political scrutiny in latest months, with the US President just lately sacking the Bureau’s head, I anticipate some noise from the conspiracy varieties to accompany this preliminary assertion from the BLS. The actual fact is that once we undertake the adjustment course of that the BLS deploys (defined under), the common month-to-month change in non-farm employment between March 2024 and March 2025 will change into round half the present estimate – 71 thousand versus 147 thousand monthly. In different phrases, when the revisions are finalised in February 2026, the labour market shall be assessed as having began slowing significantly in 2024 and persevering with into 2025. I clarify all this within the following dialogue however emphasise that the method of revision is just not some arbitrary act to make some politicians look unhealthy. It’s really a course of that upholds full transparency and is an everyday exercise that nationwide statistical businesses undertake to make the info they publish as correct as attainable.
I mentioned the issues that nationwide statistical businesses face within the interval since Covid started on this weblog submit – The so-called ‘land of the free’ is now a failed state and heading in direction of totalitarianism (August 4, 2025).
That submit was within the context of the US President’s determination to sack the BLS boss based mostly on his assertion that she had by some means “rigged” the employment information to “make the Republicans (and Trump himself) look unhealthy”.
I famous that there are long-standing conspiracy varieties who all the time make allegations concerning the official information releases of all of the nationwide businesses based mostly on some bizarre conjectures that by some means governments are controlling us with the knowledge they launch.
Whereas the conspiracy theories are ridiculous, it’s true that the nationwide statistical businesses are discovering it tougher to supply correct survey information with response charges decrease and attitudinal shifts amongst respondents to questionnaire modes (for instance, elevated hostility in direction of face-to-face interviews).
The newest revelations with respect to the (completely regular) technique of inhabitants benchmarking are certain to present these conspiracy varieties conniptions.
I believed it will be good to supply an evidence of what’s going on, given the quantity of misinformation that surrounds these bulletins.
In its Tuesday announcement, the BLS mentioned:
The preliminary estimate of the Present Employment Statistics (CES) nationwide benchmark revision to complete nonfarm employment for March 2025 is -911,000 (-0.6 %) …
The annual benchmark revisions during the last 10 years have an absolute common of 0.2 % of complete nonfarm employment. In accordance with standard follow, the ultimate benchmark revision shall be issued in February 2026 with the publication of the January 2026 Employment Scenario information launch.
So what is that this about?
Two apparent issues are associated:
1. A fairly massive revision to the info for March 2025 will develop into obvious in February 2026 relative to previous common revisions.
2. The revision course of is annual – that could be a common a part of the info gathering and dissemination course of.
The BLS additionally notes in its accompanying – Present Employment Statistics Preliminary Benchmark (Nationwide) Technical Notice – that:
The preliminary March revision quantities offered on this launch are supposed to present a preview of the revisions to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Present Employment Statistics (CES) information launched in February of every yr. At present revealed CES information haven’t been adjusted to new ranges based mostly on these preliminary revision quantities.
That’s, the changes are made once-a-year and no information will really be revised till that benchmarking evaluate is undertaken.
Does it sign that the precise information from March 2024 to March 2025 so far has overstated the well being of the US labour market?
Completely – and by fairly a margin.
The BLS is foreshadowing a fairly vital revision downwards in employment progress, the total extent which shall be revealed in February 2026.
Does this imply the BLS has been making errors in its information assortment and publishing?
Completely not.
These revisions are, in actual fact, an illustration of transparency, the place the company calibrates the info already on the general public file when extra detailed or fuller info turns into out there to it.
First, the BLS has numerous sources of knowledge out there to it – some extra speedy and others much less so – to inform us how the labour market within the US is performing.
The totally different lags in getting info for numerous financial variables is a problem all nationwide statistical businesses face.
For instance, Australia publishes a quarterly CPI collection however has been criticised as a result of it isn’t essentially attuned with the newest worth traits.
As a response, it now publishes a ‘month-to-month indicator’ to present some speedy steering, however that measure is much less correct as a result of it doesn’t embody the total info that’s out there within the quarterly collection.
Surveying and processing of knowledge takes time and when the problem is complicated, the lag in getting the info out in an appropriate type for public use is mostly longer.
The US BLS makes use of two main sources of knowledge upon which to assemble employment information:
1. The Institution Survey (CES) – “produces detailed trade estimates of nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings of employees on payrolls” on a month-to-month foundation.
Some “121,000 companies and authorities businesses, representing roughly 631,000 particular person worksites” are surveyed every month.
The benefit of the CES is that it offers well timed (month-to-month) estimates on the state of the US labour market.
The principle drawback is that could be a survey with a restricted pattern, which is topic to 2 forms of error: sampling and non-sampling error.
The sampling error is “instantly associated to the dimensions of the pattern and the proportion of universe protection achieved by the pattern”.
So a small pattern is more likely to be non-representative of the inhabitants and vice versa.
The 121,000 dimension pattern – “covers about 27 % of the overall universe employment” – and in statistical phrases that’s thought of to generate pretty dependable estimates with small variances.
Non-sampling errors pertains to deviations from true worth because of elements not as a consequence of random sampling.
So individuals not answering questions, giving unsuitable responses as a result of they didn’t perceive the questions, self-selection bias (a disjunction between the ideas that the interviewer and the respondent holds (for instance, which trade are you working in? A respondent who produces condoms, for instance may assume they’re within the medical items sector whereas the company would assume they’re within the rubber items sector), interviewer bias, and transcription and information entry errors, are all non-sampling sort errors.
This BLS explainer – Error Measurement – from the Handbook of Strategies is fascinating.
Whereas the BLS specific sampling errors through the publication of normal errors, they don’t measure the non-sampling errors, though they’ve rigorous inner processes in place to minimise them.
2. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) – that is complete overlaying nearly all employers.
The BLS publish – Overview of QCEW Reporting Charges – for the QCEW and the “% of QCEW institutions that reported information” is within the excessive 80s or low 90s on common throughout the US states.
By way of the “% of QCEW employment reported by institutions” the proportion for the US total is mostly above 96 per cent, which implies it’s a very complete supply of information.
The explanation that the QCEW is so broad is that the “counts are derived primarily from state unemployment insurance coverage (UI) tax information that just about all employers are required to file with state workforce businesses.”
As a result of the QCEW is a census fairly than a survey, it’s thought of to be extra correct than the month-to-month survey info.
The BLS additionally conducts a month-to-month family survey, the – Present Inhabitants Survey (CPS) – which produces labour drive information upon which all of the labour market aggregates can be found.
The BLS choose to base their employment commentary utilizing the CES (Payroll survey) and use the CPS to publish statistics for “the unemployment price, labor drive participation price, and employment-population ratio”.
The CPS covers “60,000 eligible households” and the BLS commissions the survey from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Clearly the bases of the CPS (households) and CES (employers) are totally different and this BLS explainer – Evaluating employment from the BLS family and payroll surveys – explains the opposite variations within the information produced.
Second, let’s work out what benchmarking is.
This BLS explainer tells all – BLS Institution Survey Nationwide Estimates Revised to Incorporate March 2024 Benchmarks.
Yearly, the BLS engages in what it calls a:
… re-anchoring of the sample-based employment estimates to full inhabitants counts out there principally by Unemployment Insurance coverage (UI) tax information filed by employers with state labor market info businesses. The distinction between the March inhabitants counts and the March sample-based employment estimates is known as the benchmark revision.
The August preliminary revisions – which have simply been revealed – are offered to present us a information as to the dimensions of the revisions that shall be revealed in February 2026.
At the moment, “21 months of beforehand revealed information and anchored to March of the earlier yr” are revised based mostly on the newest QCEW inhabitants counts.
Provided that the QCEW covers round 97 per cent of complete non-farm employment, the BLS then makes use of another information, comparable to information from the Railroad Retirement Board and County Enterprise Patterns to get near 100 per cent.
The benchmarking revision course of unfolds like this:
1. The QCEW employment ranges for March 2025 exchange the CES March 2025 employment ranges.
2. Then the estimates of employment again 11 months from the benchmark month are adjusted utilizing what the BLS name a “wedge process”, which is a statistical methodology that basically distributes the error present in step 1 throughout the months in a linear vogue.
For instance, when the QCEW estimate of employment got here out in February 2025 (it’s an annual publication) for March 2024, the latter CES estimate was adjusted downwards by 598,000 (0.4 per cent decrease).
Then for the 11 months previous to March 2024, the next modifications had been made: April 2023 adjusted 1/12 of the distinction between the QCEW February 2025 and the CES March 2024 employment estimates; Could 2023 2/12 of the distinction and so forth, with February 2024 being adjusted by 11/12 of the distinction.
The distinction between the March CES consequence within the earlier yr and the benchmark employment from the QCEW revealed the next February varies annually.
This desk (Desk 4 from the BLS web page – BLS Institution Survey Nationwide Estimates Revised to Incorporate March 2024 Benchmarks – offers a whole account of the dimensions of the revisions from 2014 to 2024 throughout the entire trade sectors within the US.
Some predictions
Primarily based on the preliminary revisions that is what the revised information may appear to be in February 2026 when the brand new benchmarks can be found, if the preliminary estimates of the distinction between the revealed payroll employment information for March 2025 and the QCEW employment for March 2025 is 911 thousand.
The revised common month-to-month employment change between March 2024 and March 2025 was reported utilizing the CES information as 147 thousand monthly, whereas making use of the revisions based mostly on the preliminary benchmark distinction would yield a mean change monthly of simply 71 thousand.
That presents a really totally different evaluation of the state of the US labour market – a a lot slower price of progress and positively nothing per the rhetoric that comes out of the White Home, inasmuch as one can discern any logic popping out of that place.
After all, we must wait till the February 2027 benchmarks are launched to essentially touch upon the efficiency of the US labour market beneath Trump.
The revisions famous above apply to the final yr of the Biden Administration.
Nevertheless, the latest payroll and CPS information doesn’t augur properly for the Trump interval in workplace.
Conclusion
Lastly, the extra the Administration and its supportive commentariat berate the BLS the tougher will the BLS job develop into – as a result of it would make it tougher for the company to gather information.
Simply because the anti-vax refrain has made it tougher for well being authorities to steer individuals to vaccinate their youngsters – with the consequence that illnesses we had largely eradicated are actually coming again.
The purpose is that this revision course of is simply commonplace follow and a distinction of 911,000 between the present March 2025 estimate and what it’s more likely to be when the total information is obtainable through the QCEW is launched in February 2026, is de facto not a really massive quantity.
That’s sufficient for in the present day!
(c) Copyright 2025 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.