Why Wall Street and Washington will be closely watching today's jobs revisions

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Why Wall Street and Washington will be closely watching today's jobs revisions.

watchlist :: 2025-09-09 :: source - yahoo finance

By Ben Werschkul

A revised look at America's jobs landscape over the last year is coming Tuesday morning with a number that is widely expected to rip through economic and political circles.

The data is backwards-facing and is expected to show about 700,000 fewer jobs were created from March 2024 to March 2025 than previously thought. What economists are set to look for are any clues about the recent deterioration of the US labor market.

Specifically, the question is to what extent a downshift, which has been in evidence this summer, began in earnest earlier than previously known.

The Trump White House is also set to be watching closely. It could use any revisions as further fodder for its critiques of government economic data — and it may also use the results to try and shift blame for the current slowdown towards former President Joe Biden or, of course, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The revisions, in spite of the political heat as of late, are a routine and yearly practice where the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) updates its estimates of jobs levels as more data becomes available.

Tuesday's release will cover the period through March 2025 — or roughly the last 10 months of Biden's term and the first two full months of Trump's.

Hoping to blame Biden? President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after stepping off Air Force One on Sunday. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

This week's release comes as extra attention is focused on the job market after new jobs data for the month of August, released last Friday, offered flashing red signs of a labor market slowdown. The report showed just 22,000 new jobs were added to the economy.

The political focus is likewise set to be intense as well after last year's release of this same preliminary annual revision fell during the heated final stretch of the presidential campaign — and became an immediate flash point when it showed the US economy created 818,000 fewer jobs than thought.

The political focus on jobs has also been in the spotlight more recently after Trump accused, without evidence, the BLS of having "phony" numbers and then fired the agency's commissioner — citing revisions as a key reason.

Downward revisions

Trump allies have seized upon larger-than normal-revisions seen in recent years to make the case that new approaches to data are needed.

Trump's pick for a new commissioner, E.J. Antoni of the Heritage Foundation, has been one of the fiercest critics of the agency. He is set to face a Senate confirmation hearing before the Senate's labor-focused panel in the coming months and will have his say.

Meanwhile, the data will be released at 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday and will show preliminary national employment benchmarks from the BLS. (Final revised numbers won't be released early next year.)

Expectations are widespread for a number that will be revised down from what government figures currently show.

The median estimate among economists compiled by Bloomberg as of Monday afternoon is for a decline of about 700,000 jobs — meaning the question is less whether there will be a decline, but instead by how much.

Economists at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, RSM US, and Mizuho Securites have offered projections of a top-line revision of between 650,000 and 750,000 fewer jobs.

Some estimates are higher, with Oxford Economics suggesting this headline revision number could even be 900,000.

Both the message and messenger under pressure

But nearly any level of downward revision over this period of political transition is sure to lead to political back-and-forth about the economic legacies of both Trump and Biden.

In short, the Trump administration could use any downward revisions to say that the economy was weakening before Inauguration Day.

One indication of the close political focus on the numbers came on Sunday, when two of Trump's top economic advisers — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on NBC's Meet the Press and Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett on CBS's Face the Nation — both brought up the revisions unprompted.

"We're going to get the revisions for last year next week and there may be as big as an 800,000 jobs downward revision," Bessent said in his appearance. "I'm not sure what these people who collect the data have been doing," he added.

Bessent's focus on the revisions came after he was challenged to explain how Trump had promised to revitalize the manufacturing sector but has so far seen the US losing manufacturing jobs since April after gains under Biden.

Hassett added in his own appearance that the high number of revisions is "why we need new and better data."

Meanwhile, Jerome Powell is unlikely to emerge unscathed.

Any significant revision is sure to reinforce the expectation for an interest rate cut later this month — and could perhaps even raise expectations of a so-called jumbo cut of 50 basis points.

It could also renew Trump-world critiques of Powell's overall tenure.

Last week's weak report was met by a response from both President Trump and his Labor secretary that the weak numbers should be attributed not to Trump's economic stewardship, but a delay from Powell in cutting rates.

In Trump's words, Powell "should have lowered rates long ago. As usual, he's 'Too Late!'"

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.