Discussion Paper

The Updated Employment Picture


Abstract: Each year, typically with little fanfare, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases revisions to historical employment data. While you may wonder if this means that history gets rewritten, it's really about making written history more accurate. Revisions are standard practice for not only employment data, but also other economic data. Revisions incorporate more complete underlying data that become available over time, as well as updates to data estimation procedures (most economic data are not based on complete counts; instead, they're based on samples that are used to generate complete estimates).

Keywords: Bureau of Labor Statistics; employment; revisions;

Access Documents

Authors

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Part of Series: Regional Matters

Publication Date: 2022-03-24