The Biden administration has revised down previously reported jobs data for nearly every month this year, resulting in a huge disparity from the originally advertised numbers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The number of jobs added in August was revised down from 227,000 to 165,000, and September was revised down from 336,000 to 297,000, resulting in 101,000 fewer jobs than were previously reported, according to the BLS.
The U.S. economy added 150,000 jobs in October, subject to revisions in future reports, lower than the 170,000 jobs that economists expected.
“While the huge downward revisions this year are not unprecedented, this pattern has only ever occurred right before or during a recession,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This could partly be due to the statistical patterns that we see as the economy contracts and firms go out of business, laying off workers at a rapid pace. At the same time, new businesses that are started hire fewer workers than at other points in the business cycle. This can produce job estimates that are heavily biased to the upside.”
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Since January, eight of the nine months have been revised down from the initial report, resulting in the original announcements being higher than the later revisions by a total of 337,000 jobs for the year — an average of 37,000 jobs per month, according to data from the BLS.
July was the only month this year not to be revised down, following the initial report, with it being revised up by 49,000 jobs.
Revisions in 2022 were far more accurate over the course of the year, but still resulted in a downward revision of 66,000 total jobs for the entire year, according to the BLS. Combined with the months reported for 2023, the total number of jobs has been revised down by 403,000 since 2022.
Health care and government openings led October’s job gains, adding 58,000 and 51,000 jobs for the month, while manufacturing fell by 35,000, according to the BLS.
The U.S. economy underwent above-trend growth in the third quarter of 2023, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rising 4.9% for the year according to an initial estimate, which could be revised at its second estimate on Nov. 29.
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Inflation has remained elevated, above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, at 3.7% for both September and August, after decelerating from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022.
The Fed chose to keep its federal funds rate steady in a range of 5.25% and 5.50% at its most recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting, leaving it at a 22-year high in an effort to bring down inflation.
The BLS did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the DCNF.
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