Initial US employment reports overstated by 439,000 jobs in 2023

Fox News ^ | 1/06/24 | Elizabeth MacDonald

[Libloather]

There’s something wrong with previous U.S. jobs reports.

The government quietly erased 439,000 jobs through November 2023, a closer look at the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

That means its initial jobs results were inflated by 439,000 positions, and the job market is not as healthy as the government suggests.

Since the government wiped out 439,000 jobs after the fact, the total percentage of jobs created by the government last year is even higher. Increased government hiring has been driving the jobs numbers higher.

This matters because U.S. jobs reports move the markets and U.S. Treasury yields. Plus, they are a significant factor in the Federal Reserve’s decisions about the path of interest rate hikes and cuts. All that affects U.S. consumers’ pocketbooks.

"Time to stop trading off the payroll data," tweeted David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research Associates. By his calculations, he says the downward revisions came to "an epic 443,000," adding, "more than 40% of payroll growth in 2023" came from "the fairy tale ‘Birth-Death’ model" the BLS uses to "guesstimate" its jobs reports.

Again, the government sector in December ranked high in job creation. It created 52,000 jobs in the final month of 2023. As FOX Business's Edward Lawrence points out, that brings the three-month average of jobs created by the government sector to 50,000 per month. Lawrence says Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su "would not answer if this is sustainable when I pressed her."

[dfwgator]

I don’t believe a damn thing coming from the government.