The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the U.S. economy actually created about 500,000 fewer jobs over 2018 and early 2019 than was initially reported, reportedly the largest revision of economic numbers in a decade.
A report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that 501,000 fewer non-farm jobs were created in 2018 and the first three months of 2019, with the biggest revisions occurring in the retail, business services and hospitality sectors.
{mosads}Economist Greg Daco of Oxford Economics wrote in tweets Wednesday morning that the revision was the agency’s largest since 2009 and predicted that job growth will slow in the months ahead.
“New data reveals slower employment growth (we extrapolated revisions) going into 2020. Maturing #labor market will mean less job growth going forward,” he wrote.
The BLS did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday evening from The Hill on the revisions.
Unemployment in the U.S. sits at 3.7 percent nationally, the agency said earlier this month, with labor force participation sitting around 63 percent.