One other day, one other dump of actually bleak jobs information

The U.S. economic system added almost 1 million fewer jobs over the previous yr than initially estimated, the Bureau of Labor Statistics introduced on Tuesday, a downward revision that exhibits simply how bleak the roles market has turn out to be for American staff.

In line with the revised numbers, the U.S. economic system added simply 850,000 jobs between March 2024 and March 2025—nearly half as many as initially reported. 

It is unclear from the report whether or not extra of the downward revisions came about in 2024 or 2025, after Donald Trump took workplace and enacted his job-killing commerce agenda.

However based on BLS information, the largest correction got here within the commerce business, with wholesale commerce and retail commerce revised downward by greater than 236,000 jobs.

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On Sept. 5, the BLS reported that hardly any jobs had been added in August. What’s extra, that very same month-to-month jobs report revised June’s information to point out that the economic system really misplaced jobs that month—the primary month-to-month job contraction because the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the meantime, the BLS reported on Sept. 3 that as of July, there have been extra unemployed staff than job openings—the primary time that has occurred since 2021, when the economic system was recovering from the pandemic job crash. 

Some prime economists are portray the grim labor market as a “labor recession,” with job openings falling off a cliff. Moody’s economist Mark Zandi instructed Enterprise Insider that if layoffs choose up, the “labor recession” will spiral right into a full-on recession.

“Everything is clinging tightly to the lip of the cliff,” Zandi instructed Enterprise Insider. “We had 10 fingers on the edge of the cliff a couple months ago, we now [have] seven fingers. A couple more fingers, and we’re going, then we’re going over the edge.”

Finally, the Trump administration is utilizing the most recent terrible jobs information to justify Trump’s August choice to fireplace the BLS chief.

“It’s difficult to overstate how useless BLS data had become. A change was necessary ton restore confidence,” Vice President JD Vance wrote in a publish on X.

Nonetheless, economists say that is par for the course.

“This annual revision process is normal. The BLS does it every year. Last August, the BLS reported -818,000 fewer jobs. Yes, these are large (negative) revisions. Why? It’s mainly due to problems accounting for new/closed businesses since the pandemic,” Navy Federal Credit score Union Chief Economist Heather Lengthy wrote in a publish on X.