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    U.S. Added 818,000 Fewer Jobs Than Reported Earlier

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    The Labor Department issued revised figures for the 12 months through March that point to greater economic fragility.The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than previously reported, a sign that cracks in the labor market are more severe — and began forming earlier — than initially believed.On Wednesday, the Labor Department said monthly payroll figures overstated job growth by roughly 818,000 in the 12 months that ended in March. That suggests employers added about 174,000 jobs per month during that period, down from the previously reported pace of about 242,000 jobs — a downward revision of about 28 percent.The revisions, which are preliminary, are part of an annual process in which monthly estimates, based on surveys, are reconciled with more accurate but less timely records from state unemployment offices. The new figures, once they’re made final, will be incorporated into official government employment statistics early next year.The updated numbers are the latest sign of vulnerability in the job market, which until recently had appeared rock solid despite months of high interest rates and economists’ warnings of an impending recession. More recent data, which wasn’t affected by the revisions, suggests job growth slowed further in the spring and summer, and the unemployment rate, though still relatively low at 4.3 percent, has been gradually rising.Federal Reserve officials are paying close attention to the signs of erosion as they weigh when and how much to begin lowering interest rates. In a speech in Alaska on Tuesday, Michelle W. Bowman, a Fed governor, highlighted “risks that the labor market has not been as strong as the payroll data have been indicating,” although she also said the increase in the unemployment rate could be overstating the extent of the slowdown.This year’s revision was unusually large. Over the previous decade, the annual updates had added or subtracted an average of about 173,000 jobs. Still, substantial updates are hardly without precedent. Job growth for the year ending March 2019, for example, was revised down by 489,000, or about 20 percent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What to Make of the Jobs Report’s Mixed Signals

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    Sometimes, the many numbers included in the government’s monthly jobs report come together to paint a clear, coherent picture of the strength or weakness of the U.S. labor market.This is not one of those times.Instead, the data released by the Labor Department on Friday was a mess of conflicting signals. It couldn’t even agree on the most basic of questions: whether the economy is adding or losing jobs.The report showed that employers added 272,000 nonagricultural jobs in May, far more than forecasters were expecting. That figure is based on a survey of about 119,000 businesses, nonprofit organizations and government agencies.But the report also contains data from another survey, of about 60,000 households. That data showed that the number of people who were employed last month actually fell by 408,000, while the unemployment rate rose to 4 percent for the first time in more than two years.The two surveys measure slightly different things. The employer survey includes only employees, for example, while the household survey includes independent contractors and self-employed workers. But that doesn’t explain the discrepancy last month: Adjusting the household survey to align with the concepts used in the employer survey makes the job losses in May look larger, not smaller.That means that the conflicting pictures come down to some combination of measurement error and random noise. That is frustrating but not unusual: Over the long term, the two surveys generally tell similar stories, but over shorter periods they frequently diverge.Economists typically put more weight on the employer survey, which is much larger and is generally viewed as more reliable. But they aren’t sure which data to believe this time around. Some economists have argued that the household survey could be failing to capture fully the recent wave of immigration, leading it to undercount employment growth. But others have argued that the employer survey could be overstating hiring because it isn’t accounting properly for recent business failures, among other factors. More

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    U.S. Accuses Hyundai and Two Other Companies of Using Child Labor

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    The Labor Department filed a lawsuit accusing Hyundai, one of its suppliers and a staffing company of jointly employing a 13-year-old on an auto body parts assembly line in Alabama.The Labor Department on Thursday sued Hyundai over the use of child labor in Alabama, holding the car manufacturer liable for the employment of children in its supply chain, including a 13-year-old girl who worked up to 60 hours per week making car parts.In the suit, filed in a federal court in Montgomery, Ala., the department said Hyundai was responsible for the employment of children at a Smart Alabama factory in Luverne, Ala., which produces parts like body panels that are shipped to a Hyundai factory in Montgomery. The suit also claimed a staffing agency, Best Practice Service, recruited the children to work at the supplier’s plant.In a statement, Hyundai said child labor was “not consistent with the standards and values we hold ourselves to as a company.” It added that the Labor Department used “an unprecedented legal theory that would unfairly hold Hyundai accountable for the actions of its suppliers.”Smart did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives of Best Practice Service, which is no longer in business, could not be reached for comment.From July 2021 to February 2022, a 13-year-old girl worked at the Smart plant, where she was recruited to work by Best Practice Service, the suit claimed. The suit also contended that two other children were employed at the plant.The Labor Department said that through the employment of children at its supplier, Hyundai was in violation of the “hot goods” provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prevents the interstate commerce of goods “that were produced in violation of the minimum wage, overtime or child labor provisions” of that law.“Companies cannot escape liability by blaming suppliers or staffing companies for child labor violations when they are in fact also employers themselves,” said Seema Nanda, the Labor Department’s chief legal officer, in a statement Thursday.The suit comes after investigations by Reuters and The New York Times documented the use of child labor by the suppliers of car companies. In 2022, Reuters found that Smart Alabama had used child labor at its facility, and that Kia, which is part of the same South Korean conglomerate as Hyundai, had also used child labor in the South. A 2023 investigation by The Times found children employed at the suppliers of General Motors and Ford Motor.Hyundai imports many of its vehicles from South Korea but has made big investments in factories in the South, spending nearly $8 billion on an electric vehicle plant in Georgia. The United Automobile Workers union has said it hopes to organize workers at Hyundai’s Montgomery plant. More

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    U.S. Job Market Eases, but Hiring Remains Firm

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    Employers added 175,000 jobs in April, a milder pace than in the winter months, though layoffs have remained low and most sectors appear stable.The American job market may be shifting into a lower gear this spring, a turn that economists have expected for months after a vigorous rebound from the pandemic shock.Employers added 175,000 positions in April, the Labor Department reported Friday, undershooting forecasts. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9 percent.A less torrid expansion after the 242,000-job average over the prior 12 months isn’t necessarily bad news, given that layoffs have remained low and most sectors appear stable.“It’s not a bad economy; it’s still a healthy economy,” said Perc Pineda, chief economist at the Plastics Industry Association. “I think it’s part of the cycle. We cannot continue robust growth indefinitely considering the limits of our economy.”The labor market has defied projections of a considerable slowdown for over a year in the face of a rapid escalation in borrowing costs, a minor banking crisis and two major wars. But economic growth declined markedly in the first quarter, suggesting that the exuberance of the last two years might be settling into a more sustainable rhythm.Year-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    Job Openings and Hiring Are at a 3-Year Ebb

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    The red-hot labor market cooled somewhat in March, government data showed on Wednesday.Employers had 8.5 million unfilled job openings on the last day of March, the fewest since early 2021, according to data released by the Labor Department. They also filled the fewest jobs in nearly four years, suggesting that employers’ seemingly insatiable demand for workers might finally be abating.A slowing labor market would be welcome news for policymakers at the Federal Reserve, who are concluding a two-day meeting on Wednesday amid signs that inflation is proving difficult to stamp out. Fed officials have said they see falling job openings as a sign that supply and demand are coming into better balance.For workers, however, that rebalancing could mean a loss of the bargaining power that has brought them strong wage gains in recent years. The number of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs fell to 3.3 million, the lowest level in more than three years and a far cry from the more than four million a month who were leaving their jobs at the peak of the “great resignation” in 2022.“This continued moderation is largely positive for the market and the economy overall, and is mostly sustainable for the time being,” Nick Bunker, economic research director for the Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote in a note on Wednesday. But, he added, “if job openings continue to decline for much longer, hiring of unemployed workers will eventually retreat enough to drive unemployment up.”There is little sign of that so far, however. Despite high-profile job cuts at a few large companies, layoffs remain low overall, and fell in March. And while job openings have fallen, there are still about 1.3 available positions for every unemployed worker. Data released by the Labor Department on Tuesday showed that wage growth picked up in the first three months of the year, suggesting workers retain some leverage.The data released Wednesday came from the Labor Department’s monthly survey of job openings and labor turnover. Economists will get a more timely snapshot of the labor market on Friday, when the government releases its monthly jobs report.Forecasters expect that data to show that employers added about 240,000 jobs in April and that the unemployment rate remained below 4 percent for the 27th consecutive month. More

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    U.S. Employers Added 303,000 Jobs in 39th Straight Month of Growth

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    The March data increased confidence among economists and investors that robust hiring and rising wages can continue to coexist while inflation eases.Another month, another burst of better-than-expected job gains.Employers added 303,000 jobs in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent, from 3.9 percent in February. Expectations of a recession among experts, once widespread, are now increasingly rare.It was the 39th straight month of job growth. And employment levels are now more than three million greater than forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just before the pandemic shock.The resilient data generally increased confidence among economists and market investors that the U.S. economy has reached a healthy equilibrium in which a steady roll of commercial activity, growing employment and rising wages can coexist, despite the high interest rate levels of the last two years.From late 2021 to early 2023, inflation was outstripping wage gains, but that also now appears to have firmly shifted, even as wage increases decelerate from their roaring rates of growth in 2022. Average hourly earnings for workers rose 0.3 percent in March from the previous month and were up 4.1 percent from March 2023.Wage growth continues to slowYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    U.S. Employers Add 275,000 Jobs in Another Strong Month

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    Economists are trying to gauge whether forecasts of a slowing labor market were mistaken or just premature. For now, gains are consistent and strong.If the economy is slowing down, nobody told the labor market.Employers added 275,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, in another month that exceeded expectations even as the unemployment rate rose.It was the third straight month of gains above 200,000, and the 38th consecutive month of growth — fresh evidence that four years after going into pandemic shutdowns, America’s jobs engine still has plenty of steam.“We’ve been expecting a slowdown in the labor market, a more material loosening in conditions, but we’re just not seeing that,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.Previously reported figures for December and January were revised downward by a total of 167,000, reflecting the higher degree of statistical volatility in the winter months. That does not disrupt a picture of consistent, robust increases.At the same time, the unemployment rate, based on a survey of households rather than businesses, increased to a two-year high of 3.9 percent. The increase from 3.7 percent in January was driven by people losing or leaving jobs as well as those entering the labor force to look for work.A more expansive measure of slack labor market conditions, which includes people working part time who would rather work full time, has been steadily rising and now stands at 7.3 percent.Wage growth slowed slightly in FebruaryYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    Job Market Starts 2024 With a Bang

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    U.S. employers added 353,000 jobs in January, far exceeding forecasts, and revised figures showed last year was even stronger than previously reported.The United States produced an unexpectedly sizable batch of jobs last month, a boon for American workers that shows the labor market retains remarkable strength after three years of expansion.Employers added 353,000 jobs in January on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent.The report also put an even shinier gloss on job growth for 2023, including revisions that added more than 100,000 to the figure previously tallied for December. All told, employers added 3.1 million jobs last year, more than the 2.7 million initially reported.After the loss of 14 percent of the nation’s jobs early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the labor market’s endurance despite aggressive interest rate increases has caught economists off guard.“I think everyone is surprised at the strength,” said Sara Rutledge, an independent economics consultant. “It’s almost like a ‘pinch me’ scenario.”Ms. Rutledge helped tabulate the National Association for Business Economics’ latest member survey, which found rising optimism that the country would avoid a recession — matching a turnaround in measures of consumer sentiment as inflation has eased.Unemployment has been under 4 percent for 24 monthsUnemployment rate More