Job Growth Was Overstated, New Data Shows

Annual revisions showed U.S. employers added just 181,000 jobs last year, far fewer than the initial estimate of 584,000, and the B.L.S. lowered its 2024 estimate by nearly 28 percent. In total, the economy has more than a million fewer jobs than previously reported.

The revisions are part of the longstanding annual process in which the B.L.S. reconciles its monthly, survey-based estimates of job growth with slower but more reliable state payroll data. The adjustment was the largest in years and the biggest since 2009 in percentage terms, and it sharpens the "low hire, low fire" stasis that has characterized the labor market for much of the past two years.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent in January, but the revisions suggest job growth nearly ground to a halt last year, making it harder for people without jobs to find work. “We’ve been hearing from workers that the job market is not working for them for some time,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at the employment site Glassdoor.

United States

job growth, bls, unemployment rate, state payroll, payroll data, labor market, jobs added, annual revisions, glassdoor, daniel zhao