01-08-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Why Jobs Numbers Were Revised Sharply Downward for June, May
Job market data get revised every month. But rarely are the revisions as negative as the ones in Friday's employment report.
The Labor Department lowered its payroll count for May and June by a combined 258,000 jobs. The last time there was such a large revision to the change in employment over the prior two months was in April 2020 – the height of the pandemic. Worryingly, revisions have been consistently negative in 2025, with the Labor Department lowering its initially reported job count every month through June.
Renaissance Macro Research economist Neil Dutta labeled the revisions 'unseemly,' noting that revisions 'tend to be cyclical, amplifying the underlying trends in the economy. In good times, revisions are positive and in bad times, revisions are negative.'
