We’re not being alarmist — the new data revisions indicate a shocking deceleration of U.S. job growth. That’s a cumulative 911,000 fewer jobs reported as of March 2025. This alteration, which stems from more comprehensive information gathered from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and tax data, highlights a troubling trend in the employment landscape. The changes mostly focused on the private sector, but employment in all levels of government was revised down by 31,000.
These benchmark revisions are notable from typical monthly re-benchmarking. They offer a more comprehensive picture by tracking these modifications across a larger span of time. The last benchmark revision, for the year ending in March 2024, originally estimated 818,000 jobs too few. When that was finally corrected in February 2025, experts had to lower the playbook number down by 598,000 jobs. This revision was the largest downward change since 2009.
These latest revisions reflect a continued anxiety over the shakiness of the U.S. economy. These corrections were over 50% greater than last year’s corrections, indicating that not only is the employment picture not brightening, it’s downright darkening. Taken together with the sharp drop in payroll count from July to August, this suggests we may be seeing the start of a significant slowdown in job creation. The changes showed that June had actually lost 13,000 jobs. This was the first negative total since December 2020.
These changes are no small matter. They can get ahead of the actual economic realities and misinterpret those core economic conditions. Instead, they offer a window only into trends that developed as far back as a year and a half prior. Fewer than 1 in 5 non-citizens in the country. The total civic labor force is about 171 million strong. The changes only represent approximately 0.6% of that total.
The gross upward revision was more than Wall Street had dared hope for. Analysts had been expecting anywhere from 600,000 on the low end to as high as one million. This is an example of how the analysts are catching on to the difficult realities of labor market supply and demand and beginning to correct their forecasts.
The changes are an excellent example and cautionary reminder of how much job growth can be revised up or down in short period of time. The latest data serves as a reminder that further vigilance in tracking employment trends and economic indicators will remain necessary for the foreseeable future. As businesses and policymakers navigate these changes, understanding the underlying factors contributing to job growth—or lack thereof—will be crucial for informed decision-making.