August Jobs Report Masks Persistent Problems With US Data

The US jobs data for August showed strong hiring, but experts warn that the numbers may be misleading due to persistent problems with the data collection process.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported an increase of 162,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August, beating the consensus estimate of 55,000. However, this number is not entirely accurate due to annual revisions to employment data, which are typically made in January.

The BLS admitted that it undercounted employment by 2 million in 2024 and overcounted by 1.4 million in 2025, with the entire adjustment being plowed into the first month of each year rather than being parsed out to individual months.

This means that all standard year-over-year household data comparisons are essentially nonsense, as well as comparisons between January and December of the prior year.