The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced a significant downward revision to employment growth for the 12 months ending March 2025, lowering prior estimates by approximately 911,000 jobs.
This revision suggests job growth was already slowing before the onset of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imports.
The big picture: Economists had anticipated revisions in the range of 400,000 to 1 million fewer jobs, with the revised figure falling near the upper end of these estimates.
- The employment level for the year through March 2024 was specifically downgraded by 598,000 jobs.
- These figures stem from the BLS’s annual “benchmark” revision, in which monthly payroll data based on surveys are compared against more comprehensive Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) unemployment insurance tax records.
- A final benchmark revision is scheduled for February 2026 and will further adjust payroll counts for months before and after March 2025.
Go deeper: Recent monthly data revealed that job growth nearly stalled in August 2025, and June 2025 marked the first month of job losses in over four years, underscoring a cooling labor market.
- Additional labor market pressures include the White House’s immigration crackdown reducing labor supply, and business shifts toward automation and artificial intelligence decreasing demand for workers.
- Despite the downward revisions and labor market headwinds, economists believe these updates will have limited influence on Federal Reserve policy, which is expected to resume interest rate cuts after pausing due to tariff uncertainties.
- The BLS draws its monthly employment figures from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, which samples around 121,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 631,000 worksites.
- The more complete QCEW data underpinning benchmark revisions cover roughly 95% of total U.S. employment based on state unemployment insurance filings.
- Sharp job number downgrades for May and June 2025 — totaling 258,000 jobs — led to political controversy, with President Trump firing BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her without evidence of manipulating data.
