On Second Thought, It's 61% Worse

Today's employment report for October showed that employers cut 240K jobs during the month, which was 40K worse than expected.  The bigger surprise, however, was the revision from last month.  In September, the BLS reported a decline of 159K jobs, but following this month's revision, the actual loss was 284K.  This disparity is a continuation of a trend that has been in place all year. 

In the table below, we compare the monthly changes in non-farm payrolls on a reported as well as a revised basis.  On a reported basis, the US economy lost 585K jobs through September, but once all the revisions are taken into account, the actual loss in jobs is at 939K, which represents a 61% increase in job losses.

 

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