Recent revisions to monthly payroll employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in August have drawn attention due to their size. The BLS reported that job gains for May and June were revised downward by 125,000 and 133,000 jobs respectively, bringing total nonfarm payroll employment gains for those months to fewer than 20,000 each. The July figure was also low at 73,000 jobs gained. These adjustments have led some observers to question whether the labor market has been weaker than previously thought.
Concerns about data reliability are not new. In a March 2025 study, Sylvain Leduc and Luiz Edgard Oliveira from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that short-term revisions in payroll employment and consumer price index inflation data over recent years were similar in size to those seen before the pandemic. “Our findings ease some concerns about the reliability of the data and that monetary policy may become too gradual. During times of high uncertainty, policymakers may put less weight on their forecasts and let the evolution of incoming data have more influence on their actions (see, for example, Daly 2023). If policymakers also perceive the data as more uncertain, they may need more evidence that the economy is moving in a particular direction before adjusting policy, which runs the risk of falling behind the curve,” wrote Leduc and Oliveira.
The issue received further attention after articles such as one published by The Economist in June raised questions about increased uncertainty in U.S. economic statistics. In July, the BLS responded with a note addressing reductions in data collection underlying consumer price index releases.
Leduc and Oliveira’s updated analysis uses historical data from sources like the Philadelphia Fed’s Real-Time Data Set to place recent payroll revisions in context. Their research shows that average monthly revisions so far in 2025 are higher than those seen in 2023 or 2024 but remain within long-term historical ranges dating back decades. Large first-month revisions have occurred several times since 1990.
They explain: “The figure shows that, on an annual basis, first revisions to payroll employment gains data in 2025 through June are within the historical range. These 2025 revisions have been a bit higher than those in 2023 and 2024 on average, but they are still generally comparable to the pre-pandemic historical average (red dashed line) and many other average annual readings.”
Further analysis found that while June’s revision was large compared with recent months’ figures—and larger than typical pre-pandemic averages—revisions of this scale are not unprecedented. Looking at first-month revisions since November 1964 reveals similar or even greater changes occurring roughly seven percent of the time.
“Overall, some recent revisions to payroll employment gains data were large relative to those issued over the last year or so,” Leduc and Oliveira concluded. “Still, over the last 60 years, there have been examples of first revisions that were of similar or greater magnitude. This continues to suggest that incoming data are within the historical range and not generally subject to greater fluctuations—and thus may not reflect higher uncertainty—than in the past.”
The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of management at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or its Board of Governors.
