- BLS issues preliminary benchmark employment revision Wednesday
- Economists still view job growth as healthy, albeit moderating
US job growth in the year through March was likely far less robust than initially estimated, which risks fueling concerns that the Federal Reserve is falling further behind the curve to lower interest rates.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. economists expect the government’s preliminary benchmark revisions on Wednesday to show payrolls growth in the year through March was at least 600,000 weaker than currently estimated — about 50,000 a month.
While JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasters see a decline of about 360,000, Goldman Sachs indicates it could be as large as a million.
There are a number of caveats in the preliminary figure, but a downward revision to employment of more than 501,000 would be the largest in 15 years and suggest the labor market has been cooling for longer — and perhaps more so — than originally thought. The final numbers a are due early next year.
Such figures also have the potential of shaping the tone of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at week’s end in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Investors are trying to gain insight as to when and how much the central bank will start lowering interest rates as inflation and the job market cool.
“A large negative revision would indicate that the strength of hiring was already fading before this past April,” Wells Fargo economists Sarah House and Aubrey Woessner said in a note last week. That would make “risks to the full employment side of the Fed’s dual mandate more salient amid widespread softening in other labor market data.”
Once a year, the BLS benchmarks the March payrolls level to a more accurate but less timely data source called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which is based on state unemployment insurance tax records and covers nearly all US jobs. The release of the latest QCEW report in June already hinted at weaker payroll gains last year.
