New downward revision for jobs numbers not surprising: CEI analysis

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that there were 911,000 fewer jobs between March 2024 and March 2025 than previously reported. While this is bad news for the labor market, experts aren’t surprised given recent revisions made by the BLS and the economy’s cool down during the Biden administration.

CEI Research Fellow Sean Higgins:

“The Labor Department’s announcement Tuesday that 911,000 fewer jobs were created between March 2024 and March 2025 than it previously estimated was bad but not surprising news. The Labor Department has consistently struggled in recent years to provide accurate and timely information about the employment situation. This doesn’t require allegations of bias. The job is vast, the economy is rapidly changing and the Labor Department’s methods for estimating employment are increasingly out of date. It was just a year ago during the Biden Administration that the department revised the jobs numbers for March 2023 to March 2024 downwards by 818,000. President Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after last month’s jobs numbers was an overreaction, but some shakeup of the department and its methodologies is needed.”

CEI Senior Economist Ryan Young:

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’s monthly jobs numbers are quick snapshots that they release as quickly as possible, in order to give policymakers and public a rough idea of how the labor market is doing in the moment. While useful, these reports are not yet complete.

“That is why BLS later issues revised versions as more data comes in. This is a common practice; the Bureau of Economic Analysis does something similar with GDP numbers, for example.

“Today’s revision only covers data from March 2024 to March 2025. This means they do not show the effects of most of the Trump tariffs. We’ll have to wait until next September for the final word on the employment effects of the first year of higher tariffs.

“If anything, today’s release shows that the economy was already starting to cool in the Biden administration. Last year’s revision, which had a similarly sized downward revision, also made the Biden administration look bad, right before the presidential election.

“While Republican partisans will likely try to find anti-GOP bias in today’s release, there isn’t one for them to find. If there is any politicization in BLS data going forward, it is more likely to run in the other direction after President Trump fired BLS’s commissioner and nominated a friendlier replacement after the recent run of lackluster monthly jobs reports.

“Today’s release will likely not have much effect on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision next week, mainly because it covers a period that ended six months ago. Any action the Fed takes now will take several months to affect the economy, so officials tend to look more at where they think the economy is going, rather than where it has been. While an interest rate cut is likely, it’ll be because the Fed sees choppy waters ahead.”