There's a lot of BS and fear-mongering being circulated about the preliminary total nonfarm payrolls benchmark revision of -911,000 from two days ago

It all betrays an inability to think. 

Bloomberg here said:

... The number of workers on payrolls will likely be revised down by a record 911,000, or 0.6%, according to the government’s preliminary benchmark revision out Tuesday. The final figures are due early next year. ...

No, it's not at all likely.

It's a preliminary number for crying out loud, the size of which reflects more on the increasing difficulty BLS is having gathering the monthly data in more or less real time than it does on the data itself. 

Bloomberg then followed that up with a scary chart of previous preliminary benchmark revision estimates, as if those represented reality, too. And then people who should know better repeated the scary chart.

This story went particularly hysterical about it: The BLS Hallucinated a Million Jobs. The Fed Can't Fix This. 

But we've known since February what the BLS really thinks the final numbers are, in thousands, and all these irresponsible sources just leave that out, because . . . clicks:

2024: -598, not -818

2023: -187, not -306

2022: +506, not +462

2021: -7, not -166

2020: -121, not -173

2019: -489, not -501

2018:  -16, not +43

2017: +135, not +95

2016: -81, not -150

2015:  -172, not -208.

 

But what does it all mean, Bertie? 

 

Over ten years BLS is saying it overestimated in its regular monthly total nonfarm payrolls reports by a net 1.03 million jobs, not by 1.722 million as in the preliminary benchmark revision reports.

 

The reality's not even 9,000 jobs a month too many, in a payroll universe where nearly 160 million people are working, but I'm supposed to be scared because they thought it might have been more like an overestimate of 14,000 a month?

 

C'mon, man. 

 

They're doing a damn good job at BLS, and it's time more people said "thank you" for a change.

 

If you want to politicize the February benchmark data, they show Biden's record over four years had a net 286,000 fewer jobs in reality, but Trump I had 491,000 fewer.

 

But you won't hear that from this flock of idiots.