U.S. employment growth through March revised down by more than 900,000 jobs

The Labor Department headquarters in Washington on Friday.

The U.S. economy likely created 911,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months through March than previously estimated, the government said on Tuesday, suggesting that job growth was already stalling before President Donald Trump ’s aggressive tariffs on imports.

Economists had estimated that the Bureau of Labor Statistics could revise the level of employment from April of 2024 through March of 2025 down by between 400,000 and one million jobs. The level of employment for the 12 months through March, 2024, was downgraded by 598,000 jobs.

The reading is a preliminary estimate of the BLS’s annual “benchmark” revision to closely watched payrolls data. Once a year, the BLS compares its non-farm payrolls data, based on monthly surveys of a sa