Last week’s annual benchmark revision to the Payroll Survey released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics finally removed the erroneous and significant surge that was introduced a year ago.
This was the 423,000 jobs gain for November 2014 which we referred to in our Consistent Payrolls Series introduction early last year. This number was a particularly egregious artifact of the BLS’s non-publication of monthly seasonal adjustment revisions.
This artificial number which, in truth, was 340,000 as of last year’s January 2015 revision was republished throughout last year, and has only now been reset by the January 2016 survey publication.
As you can see in the chart below, the November number was revised each and every month (the “internal number”) but these were never published. Until now, when the (still erroneous but less so) figure of 331,000 was published. Erroneous for the same reason’s last years was, but at least close to the true, internal number of 318,000.
For an explanation of what’s going on, and to see our subscription offer read our Consistent Payrolls Series page.