During a job fair, people wait in line. It is difficult to find a work these days.
Don’t look now, but in a few more days, a major jobs report that most people have never heard of will be released. And it’s likely that the news won’t be positive.
The number of jobs produced by the U.S. economy between April 2024 and March 2025—the time frame that spans the transition from the Biden administration to the Trump White House—will be revealed by this report on Tuesday.
The Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages is the name of the report. Although the final number may be as high as one million fewer employment, Wall Street economists predict it will show the United States added 500,000 fewer jobs during that one-year period than previously recorded.
What will the report reveal about the current state of the American economy? Actually, not much.
We already know that the job market has deteriorated significantly, as demonstrated by four consecutive months with subpar U.S. employment data.
However, the quarterly data could attest that the hiring halt started well before President Trump was elected to a second term.
As an example, RBC Capital Markets analysts stated that the QCEW revisions would be “a bit of a red herring” because they “don’t alter any of the recent trends.”
So why is so much attention being paid to this typically drowsy report? Put it down to politics.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in September 2024 that the economy had produced 818,000 fewer jobs between April 2023 and March 2024 than it had previously said. (That number was subsequently reduced to 598,000.)
Republicans seized upon the study at the time to blame Democrats for what they saw as a faltering economy. The BLS was even charged by some conservatives as concealing the hiring slowdown in an attempt to aid the Democrats in winning the 2024 election.
After the jobs report revealed that hiring this spring and summer was significantly slower than previously thought, the long-simmering disagreement about the veracity of BLS job projections sparked a political tempest last month.
In an unprecedented action, President Trump sacked the BLS chief right away and charged the agency of attempting to harm his political standing.
However, the QCEW is still important.
Why? Because it uses data from the states that account for 95% of all jobs in the nation, the quarterly report offers the most accurate assessment of employment in the United States. The main drawback is that it has a five-month lag and is only distributed four times annually.
Every month, the usual U.S. employment report is released, but it fills in the blanks with surveys of consumers and businesses and statistical sampling models. The monthly report is less reliable because it does not use real-time state employment statistics.
In any event, if the most recent QCEW reveals that job creation was significantly lower than anticipated between April 2024 and March 2025, it could strengthen the White House’s contention that the Fed should lower interest rates more quickly.
Additionally, Fed officials may change their own perspectives on the job situation, which might increase their openness to drastic rate reductions.
The degree to which lower U.S. interest rates could promote job creation is less certain.
The uncertainty brought on by the U.S. trade disputes and the increased tariffs imposed by the Trump administration has primarily caused businesses to reduce their hiring. They have resisted making large payroll increases until they have a better understanding of the costs associated with the tariffs.
Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, stated, “The Fed cannot address other factors hurting the labor market.”
