Are the official estimates of the American labor market still reliable?

Employment data (too) regularly revised downward

American economic statistics are closely scrutinized by investors, particularly because they serve to measure in real-time the health of the economy of the world's leading power, but also because they have a direct consequence on the Federal Reserve's (Fed) decisions regarding interest rates.

In this area, the labor market figures concerning job openings are the responsibility of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the monthly survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that measures, among other things, job vacancies, hires, resignations, and layoffs.

Like many economic statistics, the initial estimates published often need to be revised when more data comes in. The problem? In the case of available job openings, these initial data have led to downward revisions in 38 of the last 43 months, according to analysts from the Kobeissi Letter.

A worrying observation, as this indicates that the initial official estimates published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly appear to be overestimated compared to reality, with the most recent example being a June that involved the largest monthly downward revision since November 2025.

The number of job openings in the United States for June was revised downward by 177,000 positions, representing the largest monthly revision of this kind since November 2025. Furthermore, the number of hires in June led to a downward revision of 16,000, just as the number of voluntary resignations decreased by 19,000. At the same time, the number of layoffs and contract terminations was revised upward by 19,000.

A lack of reliability that could become problematic?

In the current context, the downward revision recorded in June fits into a period of three consecutive months involving identical modifications. A trend that can be described as durable since the beginning of 2023, according to the graph published by analysts from the Kobeissi Letter, with a few rare exceptions.

Despite the interpretations of some observers, these regularly revised downward data regarding available job openings do not alone signify that the United States is entering a recession. Indeed, this is a measure that primarily concerns demand in the labor market and not directly a net destruction of jobs.

Moreover, it would be necessary to cross-reference the information published (and revised) by JOLTS with other associated data, such as job creations, unemployment, unemployment claims, and wage growth, in order to obtain a more comprehensive view of the situation.

However, this observation allows analysts from the Kobeissi Letter to alert on this situation, in the face of American labor market data that is becoming increasingly difficult to interpret with confidence.

Indeed, the recurrence and significance of negative revisions could lead to a detrimental lag in the real-time analysis of the labor market conducted by investors... and more specifically by the American Federal Reserve.

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