re: AI is taking all our jobs!!! Oh wait...payroll beats estimates at 303K

Orange is revised. Blue is inital, so reverse your numbers.

And no, I won't take that bet. Statistically, numbers are revised down more often when the economy isn't running hot, and more often revised up during boom times. The odds of it being revised down this month are higher due to a so-so economy.

quote:

---

And this effect is not just specific to the Great Recession. In fact, negative job data revisions cluster during economic downturns. The initial data often is more upbeat than the revised data released months or even quarters later. This obviously poses a challenge to policymakers who are blind to the full extent of job losses in real time.

Economic booms, on the other hand, are usually accompanied by positive revisions to the jobs data. The job recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic provides the best and most recent example. Most months between January 2021 and December 2022 saw significantly higher job growth than what the initial data release suggested. Some nonfarm payroll prints were revised upwards by several hundred thousand jobs later on, especially in 2022. Positive data revisions cluster during economic recoveries.

---

Source: Revisions to the job numbers trouble the Fed.

And to preempt the question of whether I believe the numbers, eh, maybe maybe not? It's just another data point, and not the end-all be-all on economic health. I'm smart enough to now what I don't know, so they could be right. I'm also smart enough to always question the government, and I know that numbers can and are fudged for political gain.