U.S. adds 818,000 fewer jobs than reported earlier: official

NEW YORK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — The U.S. Labor Department said on Wednesday that monthly payroll figures overstated job growth by roughly 818,000 in the 12 months that ended in March, suggesting employers added about 174,000 jobs per month during that period, down from the previously reported pace of about 242,000 jobs, a downward revision of about 28 percent.
This is a sign that “cracks in the labor market are more severe and began forming earlier than initially believed,” said The New York Times (NYT) in its report about the change.
The revisions, which are preliminary, are part of an annual process in which monthly estimates, based on surveys, are reconciled with more accurate but less timely records from state unemployment offices. The new figures, once finalized, will be incorporated into official government employment statistics early next year.
“The updated numbers are the latest sign of vulnerability in the job market, which until recently had appeared rock solid despite months of high interest rates and economists’ warnings of an impending recession,” said NYT. More recent data, which wasn’t affected by the revisions, suggests job growth slowed further in the spring and summer, and the unemployment rate, though still relatively low at 4.3 percent, has been gradually rising.
Federal Reserve officials are paying close attention to the signs of erosion as they weigh when and how much to begin lowering interest rates, added the report. ■