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The labor market added 818,000 fewer jobs than earlier reported


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WWW.CBSNEWS.COM

New government data shows the job market was weaker than earlier reported. That could pave the way to a September rate cut.


From the not actually surprised file:


 

Quote

The U.S. job market wasn't as strong as it appeared to be in much of 2023 and early 2024, according to a new government revision of jobs data.

 

Employers added 818,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months ended March 2024 than were originally reported, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday. Job growth averaged 174,000 a month in the year that ended in March — a drop of 68,000 a month from the 242,000 jobs that were initially reported. 
 

The revised data comes after July's weak employment report that sparked concerns the U.S. economy could be cracking under the highest interest rates in 23 years. The downward revision adds evidence of a slowing labor market, and could reinforce the Federal Reserve's plan to start cutting interest rates soon, economists said.


I have a hard time understanding why we are so bad at this. Every time I add a new employee into our payroll system, a new hire report is generated and submitted to the relevant state agency that tracks employment. This stuff should all be feed directly to BLS so there isn’t as much missing data.

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Just doing some back-of-the-napkin guessing using historical trends in metrics like the U-6 rate, I wouldn't be surprised if we hit recession territory soon--the optimistic take is that we're in 1987-ish territory, where we had a flash crash in the stock market and a softening in the labor market but didn't get a recession until a bit later in the early 1990s.  Hard to know since the pandemic scrambled the supply-side of the economy in such an unprecedented way.  Hopefully a few interest rate cuts will put off the reckoning until after November. 

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