U.S. job growth was far weaker in 2024 and early 2025 than initially reported, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announcing Tuesday that employers added 911,000 fewer jobs over the 12 months ending in March than first estimated. The revision appears to be the largest ever recorded. A final figure will be released next year.
The adjustment, part of the BLS’ routine process comparing monthly surveys with state unemployment data, comes just weeks after President Trump dismissed BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer following a disappointing jobs report. Trump accused her of manipulating labor figures for political reasons.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the unprecedented revision both confirmed the weakness of the Biden-era economy and underscored the lack of credibility at the BLS. “Today, the BLS released the largest downward revision on record proving that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken,” Leavitt said, adding that new leadership was needed to restore confidence in the agency’s data.
The scale of Tuesday’s revision topped last year’s cut of 818,000 jobs from hiring estimates, a move that had already drawn sharp criticism from Trump. When firing McEntarfer last month, he cited both the weak monthly numbers and the 2024 annual revision, saying he believed the statistics were “phony” and politically skewed to favor Democrats before the election.
