Job Report live updates: US -Employment slowed to 143,000 jobs in January

On By Littum

Ben Casselman


Job growth was weaker in 2023 and 2024 than originally reported, but the big annual audits were not as bad as preliminary estimates had suggested.

Salary numbers reported every month come from a study of thousands of businesses and other employers. Once a year, the work department revises these estimates to unite them with more accurate but less timely data from state unemployment insurance offices.

This year’s revision was unusually large. According to the updated data, employers added approx. 655,000 fewer jobs in 2023 and 2024 than previously estimated. It was the biggest downward revision Since 2009.

The audit was still less than expected: In August, the work department released a preliminary estimate showing that the monthly studies had exaggerated the hiring of 818,000 jobs.

And while job growth was weaker than previously estimates showed, the audits did a little to change the overall picture of a strong labor market. Employers added 2.6 million jobs in 2023 and two million in 2024. Over President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s four years in office added the economy more than 16 million jobs, though much of it came over his first two years, When companies opened again from the pandemic.

While the big picture changed a bit, the new data revealed some more distinctive shifts below the surface. Job growth was faster in health care and the government than previous reports showed, which is remarkable because these sectors already accounted for a disproportionate share of the recent gains. Growth in retail work and temporary help services were revised sharply lower.

The new numbers also help solve a mystery: The study of employers had shown significantly stronger job gains in recent years than an alternative target of employment based on a study of households. But the combination of the downward revision of the growth of the employer survey and a large upward adaptation to employment in the household survey – which was tied to the New Census Bureau population estimates – closed largely the gap between the two measures.