The Employment Numbers Are being Fudged, So Says Jerome Powell

[Wiz Imp]

25. You may be right, but they both referred to the same rport from Challenger.

I assume you saw this.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/layoffs-hit-highest-level-2025-133648974.html
Layoffs hit highest level in 2025 since pandemic: Challenger

THe more complete analysis I saw was this:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/layoff-announcements-just-hit-highest-141826666.html
Layoff announcements just hit the highest level since the pandemic
some excerpts:

U.S.-based employers have announced plans this year to eliminate nearly 1.2 million jobs through the end of November. It’s only the sixth time since 1993 that announced job cuts through the month of November have surpassed 1.1 million. The last time was in 2020, when planned cuts totaled 2.3 million by this point in the year.

Normally the Challenger report carries relatively little weight among market participants and economists because it only tracks publicly announced job cuts, most of which haven’t happened yet. While the announcements are made by U.S.-based firms, Challenger includes cuts to jobs overseas in its tally for multinational firms.

Here's the actual report directly from Challenger:
https://www.challengergray.com/blog/challenger-report-71321-job-cuts-on-restructurings-closings-economy/#:~:text=NOVEMBER%20CUTS%20FALL%20FROM%20OCTOBER,companies'%20fiscal%20year%2Dends.
Challenger Report: 71,321 Job Cuts on Restructurings, Closings, Economy

Through November, employers have announced 1,170,821 job cuts, an increase of 54% from the 761,358 announced in the first eleven months of last year. Year-to-date job cuts are at the highest level since 2020 when 2,227,725 cuts were announced through November. It is the sixth time since 1993 that job cuts through November have surpassed 1.1 million.

Notice this part of the report that is NEVER reported in the media:

HIRING PLANS IN 2025
Through November, U.S. employers have announced 497,151 planned hires, down 35% from the 761,954 announced at this point in 2024. It is the lowest year-to-date total since 2010, when 392,033 new hires were planned through November.

To be clear, I am a retired government statistician who worked on the BLS jobs program and I can ssure you that the data so far has been legit. The BLS data is produced by career civil servants and would be impossible to manipulate without it being called out by whistleblowers. So I get angry when I see people say the know for sure Trump is "fudging" the data. I know for certain that is not true. However, that doesn't mean the BLS data is completely accurate. It comes from a relatively small statistical sample and is subject to all kinds of errors associated with statistical samples. But there is a big difference between sampling error (which is unintentional) and manipulation (which is intentional). Any errors in the data so far are completely unintentional.

One final thing - I am not saying that Trump would not TRY to manipulate the data. Pretty much every honest statistician and economist in the world have been concerned about that since the election. However, so far it has not happened, and if/when it does happen, it will be obvious and the statisticans and economists around the world will call it out.