# Nonfarm Payrolls (the Jobs Report) The headline number of the monthly Employment Situation report: net jobs added, drawn from the Current Employment Statistics survey of ~120,000 establishments (the [[Unemployment Rate]] comes from the separate household survey released the same morning). First Friday of the month, 8:30 AM — the single most market-moving and politically scored recurring data release in the world. ## The revisions problem Payrolls are published three times: initial print, then two monthly revisions, plus an annual benchmark revision against unemployment-insurance records. Revisions are normal statistics — early survey responses get supplemented by late ones. Politically, they are pure ammunition: - **Downward revisions** under an opposing administration are "proof the books were cooked" — the good headline got the coverage, the quiet correction confirms the conspiracy. - The same revisions under a friendly administration are technical noise, unworthy of mention. - Declining survey response rates have made initial prints genuinely less reliable, giving the bad-faith critique a real statistical hook — the most dangerous kind of disinformation is the kind with a true premise. ## The firing On August 1, 2025, this report ended a 141-year norm: +73K July payrolls with −258K in revisions, and hours later [[Donald Trump]] fired BLS Commissioner [[Erika McEntarfer]], alleging rigged numbers. Full arc at [[BLS Data Integrity Crisis]]. The episode inverted the revisions weapon: revisions had been cited *by* Trump as proof of Biden-era fakery; once the same statistical machinery produced weak numbers on his watch, the machinery itself became the enemy. The October 2025 shutdown then punched a permanent hole in the series — October's collection was never completed, leaving a partial blind spot in the official employment record. ## Latest reading *As of 2026-10-07 · refreshed monthly · the cross-indicator read lives at [[State of the US Economy]].* - **September 2026: +29,000** against a consensus near 90,000. **July was revised to −10,000** (from +21K) and **August to +133,000** (from +162K), a combined −60,000. The three-month average is about **+51,000** (computed). - Average hourly earnings rose **+0.1% m/m** to $37.81, and **3.0% y/y**. - **The frozen market, now colder.** Hiring has nearly stopped, but layoffs have not started: weekly jobless claims were 197,000, near multi-decade lows. That mix of weak hiring and low layoffs is the labor market the Fed raised rates into on Sept 16, before this report came out. See [[Federal Funds Rate]]. - **Next:** October report, early November. *Sources:* [BLS Employment Situation](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) · [Reuters via Virginia Business](https://virginiabusiness.com/us-job-growth-slows-september-unemployment-rises/) · [Fox Business](https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-jobs-report-september-2026) · [DOL weekly claims](https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf) ### Earlier snapshot (June 2026) May 2026: +172K (beating consensus ~80K), unemployment steady at 4.3%, wages +3.4% y/y, with upward revisions to March (+214K) and April (+179K). The market narrative is a "frozen" labor market — low hiring, low firing — while administration messaging treats every beat as vindication. Each strong print under a not-yet-confirmed BLS leadership (acting commissioner Wiatrowski; [[Brett Matsumoto]] pending) now gets parsed for credibility by *both* sides — the lasting damage of the firing. ## See Also - [[Unemployment Rate]] — the household-survey sibling - [[JOLTS]] — openings and quits beneath the headline - [[BLS Data Integrity Crisis]] — the political story