Link Securities | The US economy created 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported during the 12-month period to March 2024, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday. Thus, real job growth was almost 30% lower than the 2.9 million net new jobs initially reported in the period from April 2023 to March 2024. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a smaller downward revision of 500,000 jobs.
However, job creation over the period amounted to more than 2 million, equivalent to about 173,500 jobs per month. All indications are that the labour market has been cooling somewhat faster than the Labour Department had been showing.
It is worth noting that most of the downward revisions came from the private sector, which created 819,000 fewer jobs than initially estimated. The professional and business services sector experienced the largest downward revision, followed by leisure, hotels and restaurants and manufacturing. Job creation in the government sector, the main driver of employment growth over the past year, was revised up by 1,000 jobs for the 12-month period ending in March.
