Jobs Report Mirage: Hiring Looks Fine Until Revisions Hit

(The Center Square) – Last week’s jobs report said the U.S. added 130,000 jobs in January. But the more consequential news landed in the fine print: the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual benchmark revision drastically rewrote 2025. Payroll growth for 2025 was revised down from +584,000 to +181,000 – about +15,000 jobs per month – and the March 2025 payroll level was revised down by 898,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. Put differently: January’s headline gain may be real, but the “trend” we thought we were tracking for most of last year wasn’t. That helps explain why many workers’ lived experience has felt worse than the monthly payroll prints suggested. A labor market that’s no longer collapsing… but still feels stuck There is a plausible silver lining. The pace of deterioration may be slowing. The unemployment rate in January ticked down to 4.3%, and wage growth remained moderate. That’s the average – but the average is not the reality for everyone. Young workers and Black workers