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

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By Elizabeth MacDonald, Fox Business

Something is wrong with previous US jobs reports.

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

This means that the initial jobs results were inflated by 439,000 jobs, and the labor market is not as healthy as the government suggests.

Since the government then eliminated 439,000 jobs, the total percentage of jobs created by the government last year is even higher.

Increased government employment has led to higher job numbers.

This is important because US jobs reports move markets and US Treasury yields.

In addition, it is an important factor in the Federal Reserve's decisions on the path to raising and lowering interest rates. All of this impacts the pockets of US consumers.

“It's time to stop trading payroll data,” he tweeted David Rosenbergfounder of Rosenberg Research.

By his calculations, he says the downward revisions reached an “epic 443,000,” adding that “more than 40% of salary growth in 2023” came from the “fancy 'birth and death' model” that the BLS uses to “estimate.” Reports its functions.

Once again, in December, the government sector ranked highly in job creation.

It created 52,000 jobs in the last month of 2023.

As Fox Business's Edward Lawrence points out, this brings the three-month average of government sector jobs to 50,000 jobs per month.

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su “wouldn't answer if this was sustainable when I pressed her,” Lawrence says.

The health care and social assistance sector, which relies heavily on government spending funds, created about 59,000 job opportunities.

The problem of inflated job numbers is not a new problem.

In August 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a preliminary review of the 12 months through March 2023 showing that U.S. job growth for that period was overstated by a net 306,000 jobs.

That means 25,500 fewer jobs on average per month in that period.

Private sector job creation was also revised down by 358,000 in the period, while government payrolls were revised up by 52,000.

The Philadelphia Fed also raised eyebrows in December 2022 when its algorithms predicted that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had overreported job growth by 1.1 million in the second quarter of that year.

The president has also been accused of taking too much credit for the jobs numbers.

He claimed to have created 13 million to 14 million jobs.

But economists and market analysts pointed out that these jobs were regained by the US economy after pandemic lockdowns wiped out 22 million jobs.

In fact, the economy under President Biden has “brought back” all the jobs lost due to the pandemic and “created” 4.86 million jobs since February 2020.

This is a hum result.

In addition, the economy “brought back” all the manufacturing jobs lost due to the pandemic and “created” 201,000 manufacturing jobs.

Only 6,000 were created in December 2023.

Manufacturing jobs are very important.

It creates a halo effect for other sectors, be it the service industry or healthcare.

The manufacturing sector witnessed a contraction for 14 months in a row.

Today, labor force participation in the United States is at a historically low level (62.5%).

As Edward Lawrence reported, the December jobs report shows that 683,000 workers dropped out of the labor force.

A record 8.69 million people now hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.

The economy has lost 1.5 million full-time workers since June of last year, while adding 796,000 part-time workers.

This means more workers are holding multiple jobs to pay for the higher costs of living due to the cumulative inflation rate of 17.4% under the White House.

This is not a good sign.