Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does this comment help the discussion?
I think the root cause is important to the discussion.
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U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
41–50 of 514 posts
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#42Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#43[flagged]
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They intentionally hired incompetent and/or politically-biased bureaucrats to cook the numbers?
Because that's what we're about to see. A players hire B players, B players hire C players, and Trump hires the rest. The next round of economic reports will be much better, I'm sure. Or else.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#44What I really fail to understand - how can departments like BLS screw up to this extent. Either they are grossly incompetent or they are intentionally corrupt. The data covers the period from March 2024 to March 2025 and trims the average monthly jobs gains seen during this period (roughly the last 10 months of Joe Biden's presidency and the first two months of Trump's) from a monthly average of 147,000 to about 71,0…
There are ~160 million working adults in the US. Jobs numbers being off by 100k in either direction doesn't seem that bad when you consider that.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#45[flagged]
This is probably the culmination of every administration after Clinton. Unsustainable spending that keeps going until now we are feeling the pressure. This administration is definitely acting in ways I feel are significantly suboptimal but it's unlikely to show the deeper impacts so quickly.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#46Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#47What I really fail to understand - how can departments like BLS screw up to this extent. Either they are grossly incompetent or they are intentionally corrupt. The data covers the period from March 2024 to March 2025 and trims the average monthly jobs gains seen during this period (roughly the last 10 months of Joe Biden's presidency and the first two months of Trump's) from a monthly average of 147,000 to about 71,0…
They rely on reporting from employers, and employers don’t report that data quickly enough, so there’s an amount of estimation.
Over time they get better numbers relating to previous quarters and they revise their numbers.
Also employers can report revised numbers for a quarter, to make corrections.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#48[flagged]
These are numbers from March 2024 to March 2025, right? The current administration was present for 3 of those 12 months. I think the forces that move the whole US and world economy don’t really change between administrations.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#49What I really fail to understand - how can departments like BLS screw up to this extent. Either they are grossly incompetent or they are intentionally corrupt. The data covers the period from March 2024 to March 2025 and trims the average monthly jobs gains seen during this period (roughly the last 10 months of Joe Biden's presidency and the first two months of Trump's) from a monthly average of 147,000 to about 71,0…
They are neither.
Revisions and surprises are routine. Data comes in gradually, but estimates are useful even before all data has arrived. Early data is based on business reporting and businesses that report on-time aren't necessarily representative of all businesses. Those people who use this data know this, and prepare for revisions.
I hope this helps and you understand better. Anyone here who still thinks this is still incompetence or corruption because surveys come late?
>I wonder why there is such lack of accountability from firms whose data pretty much feeds the world's economy.
Create punishment system? Unless compaies report data back to BLS very fast, they pay big fee or are taxed higher. Small shops would hate it.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#50I think it's interesting that everyone's immediate reaction now-a-days is to assume incompetence or maliciousness, rather than curiosity at the root cause (very telling this attitude has even permeated a forum for supposed 'hackers').
A high-level is that 80% of the economy is very easy to track b/c it's not very volatile (teachers, for example).
What we have seen is a huge surge in unpredictability in the most volatile 20% of jobs (mining, manufacturing, retail, etc.). The BLS can't really change their methods to catch up with this change for classic backwards compatibility and tech debt reasons.
Part of the reason 'being a quant' is so hot right now is that we truly are in weird times where volatility is much higher than most people realize across sectors of the economy (i.e. AI is changing formerly rock-solid SWE employment trends, tariffs/electricity are quickly and randomly changing domestic manufacturing profitability, etc.). This means that if you can build systems that track data better than the old official systems, you can make some decent money investing against your knowledge.
I think this is a bad state of affairs, but I don't have a good solution. Any private company won't release their data b/c it's too valuable and I am reluctant to encourage the BLS to rip up their methods when backwards compatibility is a feature worth saving.