Updated benchmarks show slightly fewer jobs in US, more in Wis. And both growing strong.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its "gold standard" jobs report - the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Which is always a good time to take a step back, see if anything has changed, and compare across states.

But the QCEW update that came this week also allowed for the BLS to review the monthly jobs reports up through March 2023. And that review indicates that job growth would be revised down early next year.

Each year, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey employment estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment for the month of March. These counts are derived from state unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file. For National CES employment series, the annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have averaged plus or minus one-tenth of one percent of total nonfarm employment. The preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision indicates a downward adjustment to March 2023 total nonfarm employment of −306,000 (−0.2 percent).

Preliminary benchmark revisions are calculated only for the month of March 2023 for the major industry sectors in table 1. The existing employment series are not updated with the release of the preliminary benchmark estimate. The data for all CES series will be updated when the final benchmark revision is issued.

Even with the downward revision, the US still had strong job growth in that March 2022 to March 2023 period – just under 3.75 million jobs, or more than 310,000 a month. But I also would hope this helps the folks at the Fed recognize that US job growth has been moderating since early 2022, which is something they have claimed they wanted to see as they hiked interest rates over the last couple of years.

I also note that nearly half of the downward revision is due to the transportation and warehousing sector (-146,200), which includes transportation industries like trucking and air travel, which suffered at the start of the pandemic. But it also includes industries that hired up when more people were ordering remotely instead of heading to stores. And as people returned toward their pre-COVID buying habits, warehousing and couriers had already seen declines in the last year, even before these downward revisions get taken into account.

Locally, Wisconsin seems poised to add more jobs than what was previously reported, as the QCEW said we nearly hit 2% job growth for that 12-month period, while the monthly jobs reports had only put us at 1.5% growth. That would translate into an upward revision of around 12,000 to 14,000 when the state figures are benchmarked next March. Nice number to see, and while we are only in the upper 30s when compared to all other US states, we are outpacing most of the Midwest.

Job growth, QCEW, Midwest. March 2022-March 2023
Ill. +2.13%
Minn +2.01%
Wis. +1.959%
Mich +1.956%
Ind. +1.78%
Ohio +1.72%
Iowa +0.93%

Not bad overall, even with the lower revisions nationwide. And it's a trend that shouldn't be ended just so we can get inflation to 2% instead of 3-4%.