They lie... lie and lie some more.

If tghyey get corrupted, we will know because they will resign en masse.

This is a group of dedicated statisticians who follow a rigorous process. They will not be corrupted.

Unfortunately, what I predict is this, the jobs numbers will get too bad and Trump will fire most of them and replace them with idiots who will just make up numbers. We will hear about it in the media for about a month, but then the corporate media will just forget that happened and go on reporting these numbers like they're still meaningful; I can see the headlines now, "Trump economy creates 1 Million jobs for the 15th month in a row, unemployment falls to 0.0%!!!" In the meantime, the soup lines will be miles long everywhere.

The VA lost 30,000!

. . . but doesn't the Trump pick in charge of the BLS now get a chance to decide what is actually reported?

who has been acting director a number of times before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

That bozo, E.J Antoni that tRump nominated then withdrew his nomination after a lot of pushback. So Wiatrowski is still leading.

This furrow has already been well-plowed - see October 1 thread
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143540128

From Bloomberg - [

And how long until the growth number is revised and reversed?

For example, the November report that came out yesterday had revisions to September and October.

The one coming out next, on January 9 [1], will be the December report. The previous 2 months (October and November) will likely be revised. Likely downward if the recent revisions trend is a guide.

Then there are the annual benchmark revisions -- the latest one was a 911,000 jobs reduction over the 12-month period April 2024 to March 2025 (for perspective that averages out to 75,900 jobs/month). A preliminary revision was announced in September with the 911,000 figure. A final revision (probably with a different number) will be announced with the January jobs report that comes out in early February.


[1] https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/empsit.htm
(sadly it just covers the 2025 reports, they haven't come out with the 2026 dates yet)

Translation: time to doctor the numbers.

When the shit really goes south by mid 2026 we'll know because the reports will be delayed.

Those jobs are usually gone by mid January.

Is this the best they could do on massaging the numbers?

What do you think their threshold is for plausible-deniability?

Scary....

Because to hear Pedo McRapey's telling of the economy we had to have added 1/2 a million jobs last month--most of them being rocket surgeons and bank executives.

This will be an even worse day for Susie Wiles now....

...actual reality than the alternative reality spewing out of the WH on a daily basis.

agree w/your point

I'm astonished to see any job growth. My kids are college-aged and all I hear about is young folks having a horrible time landing jobs right now.

Keep in mind, these are just estimates based on a sample which is subject to all kinds of statistical error. According to BLS, the 90% confidence interval is +/- 136,000. That means, it's 90% likely that the real change in jobs is between -72,000 & +200,000. So even BLS' numbers show there is a significant chance that jobs really went down in November.

and 416k / month average over last 3 months, and 204k jobs/month average over last 7 months
those are before seasonal adjustment. (all are estimates)

It's after seasonal adjustment that 105,000 jobs were lost in October and 64k jobs were gained in November.
and 22k jobs/month average over last 3 months and 17k jobs/month average over last 7 months. (Again all are estimates)

Please see #19
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3583396

If you paid any attention at all, you'd see I responded to 3 separate posters that the data were seasonally adjusted. I don't need you or anyone lecturing me on seasonal adjustment.

My post was 100% accurate. I was talking about the seasonally adjusted jobs, (That should have been completely obvious - but apparently you felt the need to "correct" me by completely ignoring the context of my response), so it is 100% true that there's a significant chance that seasonally adjusted jobs actually went down.

Anyway, The "not seasonally adjusted" jobs increase in November was the smallest since 2009. Given that, I would have expected the seasonally adjusted number to show a drop and am surprised it showed a gain. It will almost certainly be ultimately revised to a drop.

Yes, you did make your "There probably wasn't an increase in jobs" in the context of seasonally adjusted jobs, and I agree that the November +64k seasonally adjusted gain is likely to be revised down to zero or less. So if I had this subthread to do all over, I'd reorient it to another perspective rather than a correction.

Just to be clear - I very strongly believe in doing seasonal adjustments and that the numbers that are primarily reported should be the seasonally adjusted ones, so that they are more comparable to each other from month to month and season to season.

And I very much appreciate you explaining to several in this thread and others that the numbers being presented, like 105,000 jobs lost in October and 64,000 gain in November are seasonally adjusted, and so adjust for the effect of seasonal job patterns like Christmas hires.

I find myself doing that many times a month (in this thread, my #19 had this purpose), and I'm VERY glad to see you sharing in that burden. It's a point I also make in my daily S&P 500 thread in the Economy Group. You will also see that I've also benefited from your other work there too - for example that Powell did not say the numbers are being fudged (I've also read the entire 26 page press conference),

and that the million (or 1.1 million) "jobs lost" this year, as reported by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas are ANNOUCED LAYOFFS, and are not actual layoffs, and they are NOT net job loss numbers (net of hiring) etc.

And like you, I don't think much of the people who screech Krasnov Krasnov! every time an economic report comes out that doesn't meet our ideological predilections.

I consider you a very important ally, even though we don't seem to get along.

Yes, seasonal adjustments is not a perfect process. They may have over-adjusted, they may have under-adjusted.

In the last 3 months, seasonal adjustments reduced 416.0k jobs/month average to 22.3k jobs/month.
In the last 7 months, seasonal adjustments reduced 203.6k jobs/month average to 17.0k jobs/month.

Here are the month-by-month job numbers changes for 2025, from January through November:

Not seasonally adjusted:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CEU0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
-2828 849 458 825 703 326 -1037 185 328 679 241 < -- these are in thousands
Last 3 months: 416.0k jobs/mo average,
Last 7 months: 203.6k jobs/mo average

Seasonally adjusted:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
111 102 120 158 19 -13 72 -26 108 -105 64 < -- these are in thousands
Last 3 months: 22.3k jobs/mo average,
Last 7 months: 17.0k jobs/mo average

All the government reports I know of are seasonally adjusted, and those are the numbers presented in the media and the primary narratives.

As for non-govt ones, most are that I'm familar with. The ADP private payrolls report for example, is seasonally adjusted (I'm seeing the same "well that's because of Christmas hires" on that thread too).

ETA - By the way, the above numbers do not include the preliminary 911,000 downward benchmark revision that was announced in September for the period April 1, 2024 - March 31, 2025. That's 75,900 jobs/mo average. The final version of that will be reported in the January report that comes out in early February, and the above data series will be revised.

In the future, the April 1 2025 - March 31, 2026, will also be revised, likely downward, as they have been in recent years.

They fired everyone that can count so what preschooler was responsible for these numbers?

Jobs have increased by a total of just 119,000 in the 8 months since April, an average of less than 15,000 a month. The last time the US saw economic data this bad (excluding the pandemic effect in 2020) was in 2008 just as the Great Recession was starting. It definitely appears we are on the verge of a recession if we aren't already in one and it is likely to be a really bad one.

Like a pretty bad number to me. Many times during Biden’s term wasn’t it over 100,000?

was less than this months reported 64,000 (that was October 2024 at 44,000). The average monthly gain under Biden was 336,000. Under Trump, the average so far this year is under 50,000 per month, and since April under 15,000. The maximum monthly growth this year was 158,000 in March. Biden beat that mark 35 out of 48 months and equaled it in one other month (and had yet another month only 1,000 off at 157,000).

that the media doesn’t talk about that.

Unemployment rate reaches a four-year high as Trump’s economic woes continue

Trump, last week: “When will I get credit for having created ... perhaps the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country?”

Reality, this week: The unemployment rate has reached a four-year high and 2025 is the worst year for job growth since the Great Recession. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-16T14:05:51.941Z

Is this number credible? The Bureau of Labor Statistics is Trump's shop now, isn't it, after he fired its leader for reporting truthful statistics earlier this year. But then what president would want such anemic job creation in a month ramping up for Christmas production and the Christmas rush?

I'm concluding that the real numbers are much worse than this.