There's no sugar coating the latest jobs revision report. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics wipes out nearly a million jobs from its tallies over the past year, it's not a good sign. The Federal Reserve has two mandates: inflation and employment. We're about to witness the U.S. Central Bank pivot to employment very quickly.

The preliminary revisions to the jobs numbers from March 2024 to March 2025 show -911,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. CNBC notes, "The total revision was on the high end of Wall Street expectations, which ranged from a low around 600,000 to as many as a million."

We won't get another revision to these numbers until February 2026. As it stands, this is the largest revision of its kind since the Great Recession in 2008, and far surpasses the more than 800,000 revised job reductions in the 2024 report.

CNBC adds to that analysis, "The revisions were more than 50% higher than last year's adjustment and the largest on record going back to 2002. On a monthly basis, they suggest average job growth of 76,000 less than initially reported."

In short, job creation was far worse in 2024 - an election year - than anyone predicted. All the positive reports touted by the Biden administration and used by the Federal Reserve to inform its monetary policy were misleading. The level of weakness in job creation is the sort of thing that had the Fed known it, they'd have started cutting earlier.

At this point, you have assumed the large and positive job reports from this year will get revised down, too, because it's the same reporting method. Trump's decision to fire the head of the BLS makes sense when you factor in that the two worst revisions in BLS history came in back-to-back years. We can't point to things like a massive recession like in 2008.

But the numbers do demand an honest answer: what happened? The typical response is that it's getting harder and harder to run surveys in the BLS. I'm fully aware of that being the case. However, relying on that answer when the system seemingly imploded over the last two years rings hollow. Three years ago, revisions were still made, but not to the extent we've seen over the previous two years of Joe Biden's presidency.

The BLS reports fall into a broader pattern over that period. No one knows who was running the White House; the same is true of Robert Mueller's investigations, and now we're adding the BLS to the mix. These kinds of revisions make any monthly report essentially useless.

The Wall Street Journal reports, "But the report, even though it is for a period that ended nearly a half year ago, could amplify worries that the job market, which has shown signs of significant weakening since March, started from a lower baseline than previously known. And it comes at a time when the BLS has come under fire from President Trump over the accuracy of its data."

Indeed, the Federal Reserve will make its next rate cut decision next week. While Jerome Powell and other Fed watchers claimed they were expecting downward revisions, the level of this revision is substantial. It will impact how the Federal Reserve votes on rate cuts. Trump has pressured the bank to cut by 25 basis points. That's nearly a lock now.

The broader debate from now until next week is whether a larger cut is needed to prop up the labor market. The time to act on that is now, as any movement on rates will take time to work its way through the system.

Whatever that decision ultimately is, the broader issue of BLS reporting accuracy remains. The White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve, and numerous other agencies use these reports to build policy. Wall Street uses jobs reports for investment trades. Corporate America uses them to gauge the health of the economy.

If these reports are no longer helpful, everyone in the above categories is making decisions based on incorrect data. That's a recipe for disaster.

An overhaul at the BLS is long overdue. But a restoration of trust is needed, too. We not only need accurate data, but also to believe that it helps us make informed decisions. If no one believes the official numbers anymore, that breeds distrust in the system.

I get that we're in a moment of populism where everyone hates the institutions and systems in place - sometimes for good reason. However, it remains true that creating sound data is the central goal of the BLS, and there's no way to support the claim that it is succeeding in that task anymore.

The economy is weaker than anyone imagined. Biden's claims of a strong economy were based on nearly a million jobs that didn't exist. It's up to Trump to fix that problem and restore the BLS.