Bureau of Labor Statistics

Anecdotally, I have seen far more small businesses getting bought out than I can remember. More on reddit.com

The number of people employed part time for economic reasons was 5.5 million in November, an increase of 909,000 from September. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. Danggggg I read this as a bunch of people who unexpectedly lost their job and are now giggin it to make ends meet, but it is definitely blunting some of the layoff impacts in the topline figures, no? Maybe also includes furloughed feds. More on reddit.com

This is a surprisingly good article from CNN about how the shutdown affected the Bureau's work. I want to add just two things: 1. Instead of getting your news about the BLS reports from news articles, there's absolutely no reason not to just look at the reports yourself. They come with very accessible summaries at the start and you can see exactly what data supports them. This is their release schedule for December. This is where you can find new releases. I think this is especially important right now as with so much economic data coming out in this week, both Dems and Republicans will each be able to pick out at least a handful of significant talking points each that support their views. To determine what the overall picture looks like, you're better off going straight to the primary data than listening to them talk past each other through ragebait statements & headlines. 2. We are not expecting this round of BLS reports to account for the systematic jobs overcount issue that the BLS has been struggling with for years (and which Powell alluded to lately). Consensus is that the overestimate comes from the birth-death model component of their estimations , and the BLS is not updating that model again this year: Effective with the release of January 2026 data, the establishment survey will change the birth-death model by incorporating current sample information each month. The change follows the same methodology applied to the April through October 2024 forecasts during the 2024 post-benchmark period (see question 9 in the CES Birth-Death Model Frequently Asked Questions page at www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbdqa.htm). This issue likely does not affect all estimates equally (I would expect it affects initial estimates more than revised ones, for example), but Powell believes it's an overstatement of around 60k jobs per month. For context, here are the notable revisions of the last two years: 2023 — revision downwards of 818,000 jobs, a drop of 68k a month 2024 — revision downwards of 911,000 jobs, the largest revision on record and a drop of 76k a month 2025 — obviously the BLS hasn't published the annual revisions tally yet, but the May and June estimates were revised down by 125k and 133k respectively , and the estimates were only 144k and 147k in the first place so there have been some major ones. Other months' revisions have been more tame. Overall, Powell's ~60k figure is probably a good rule of thumb. More on reddit.com

Can someone schedule a wellness-check on that 33%? Joking, not really joking. More on reddit.com