The number of jobs created in each month of 2023 has been revised down in subsequent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports, making the current month’s growth look better in comparison.
On Friday, the BLS reported that 253,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were created last month. But, April’s job growth would’ve been only 182,000 if the BLS hadn’t revised March’s total down by 71,000, from 236,000 to 165,000.
Friday’s report on April employment also revised February’s job growth downward 78,000 jobs, from 326,000 to 248,000.
Last month’s BLS report on March employment revised January’s job growth down by 32,000, from 504,000 to 472,000 – after the previous month’s revision had already subtracted 13,000 jobs (from +517,000 to +504,000) from January’s growth.
Over-estimating the current month’s growth makes it look larger in comparison to the previous month's total, especially if the previous month’s count is revised downward.
Combined, the number of jobs created in January through March of this year is now 181,000 higher than it would’ve been without the revisionist elimination of jobs.
An analysis published Friday by Zero Hedge concludes that the BLS is intentionally manipulating the employment numbers, in order to make the Biden Administration look better:
“And just like that, we get confirmation that every BLS number is only gamed to beat the current month consensus estimate so that Biden's admin can take props for handling the labor market ‘better than expected.’”
The BLS attributes the changes, in part, to a “recalculation” of the number of jobs created:
“Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.”
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