The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was scheduled to release benchmark revisions to nonfarm payrolls at 10 a.m. ET here: https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesprelbmk.htm
This has not been updated but we are monitoring it closely. It is rare for a release schedule to be disrupted, so it is not clear what is happening.
However, a separate report covering the same timeline was released – the nation’s employment and wages report. The report showed 153.6 million jobs, up 1.3% year-over-year. That’s 1.97 million jobs, down from the 2.9 million jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in the year ending in March (-930,000).
What’s hard to reconcile is that this also highlights 153.6 million employees, which is slightly lower than the 153,757,000 reported in the March nonfarm payrolls report.
What’s even more confusing is that economist Christophe Barraud (who is usually right) also highlights the country’s employment and wages report, which includes the quarterly census of employment and wages – on which the benchmark revisions are based.
It expects a loss of 450,000 jobs, close to what was expected but perhaps a little higher than consensus.
What’s amazing is that there was a fairly big move at 10am in the USD/JPY pair, so there are definitely people trying to trade this title.
Finally, our friends at @newsquawk reported a rumor of -818K degrees, citing someone who said they called the Bureau of Labor Statistics themselves, though it may seem strange to me that they would give that number over the phone when it hadn’t yet been posted online.
So what does this show? It leaves us with four different numbers:
The truth is I don’t really think this number matters but it’s cool to see the excitement and the digging.