A chart comparing the previously released cumulative monthly change in jobs to revisions since February 2020 that show that jobs grew less than previously reported.
Cumulative change in
jobs since Feb. 2020
Cumulative change in
jobs since Feb. 2020
Job growth was weaker in 2023 and 2024 than initially reported, but the big annual revisions weren’t quite as bad as preliminary estimates had suggested.
The payroll numbers reported each month come from a survey of thousands of businesses and other employers. Once a year, the Labor Department revises those estimates to reconcile them with more accurate but less timely data from state unemployment insurance offices.
This year’s revision was unusually large. According to the updated data, employers added about 655,000 fewer jobs in 2023 and 2024 than previously estimated. It was the largest downward revision since 2009.
Still, the revision was smaller than expected: In August, the Labor Department released a preliminary estimate showing that the monthly surveys had overstated hiring by 818,000 jobs.
And while job growth was weaker than earlier estimates showed, the revisions did little to change the overall picture of a strong labor market. Employers added 2.6 million jobs in 2023 and two million in 2024. Over President Joseph R. Biden…
