U.S. March 2026 Non-Farm Payroll Benchmark Revised Down by a Marginal 79k
The preliminary estimate for the revision to the March 2026 non-farm payroll benchmark was overshadowed by today’s speech from Fed’s Warsh. It turned out to be marginal, a negative revision of 79k, a stark contrast to a 911k downward preliminary estimate for the March 2025 benchmark revision announced a year ago. The final revision to the March 2025 benchmark was -862k.
Detail of the March 2026 preliminary revision shows a larger downward revision of 178k in the private sector, but if spread evenly between March 2025 and March 2026 this would still only mount to 15k per month, compared to 7k per month overall. Retail at -155k was the largest negative, and transport and warehousing at 135k the largest positive.
Looking at the labor Dept’s quarterly Business Employment Dynamics data, it seems likely that payroll data from Q2 and Q3 2025 will be revised lower, and Q4 2025 revised higher. The Q1 2026 revision will probably be modestly negative to get a marginally negative revision overall. The data will not be incorporated into the non-farm payroll series until its January 2027 release in February 2027.