Current Employment Statistics Preliminary Benchmark (National) - March 2025

The preliminary estimate of the Current Employment Statistics (CES) national benchmark revision
to total nonfarm employment for March 2025 is -911,000 (-0.6 percent), the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. The annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have an absolute
average of 0.2 percent of total nonfarm employment. In accordance with usual practice, the final
benchmark revision will be issued in February 2026 with the publication of the January 2026
Employment Situation news release.

Each year, CES employment estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment from the
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). These counts are derived primarily from state
unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file with state
workforce agencies.

The preliminary benchmark revision reflects the difference between two independently derived
employment counts, each subject to their own sources of error. It serves as a preliminary measure
of the total error in CES employment estimates from March 2024 to March 2025. Preliminary research,
which is not comprehensive and is subject to updates in QCEW data, indicates that the primary
contributors to the overestimation of employment growth are likely the result of two sources—response
error and nonresponse error. First, businesses reported less employment to the QCEW than they
reported to the CES survey (response error). Second, businesses who were selected for the CES survey
but did not respond reported less employment to the QCEW than those businesses who did respond to
the CES survey (nonresponse error). Estimates of other errors, such as the forecast error from the
net birth-death model, are not available at this time. Information on how the net birth-death
forecasts have reduced benchmark revisions historically are available on the CES Birth-Death Model
Frequently Asked Questions page in question 10, www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbdqa.htm.

The preliminary benchmark revisions in table 1 are calculated only for March 2025 for the major
industry sectors. As is typically the case, many of the individual industry series show larger
percentage revisions than the total nonfarm series, primarily because statistical sampling error is
greater at more detailed levels than at an aggregated level.

Official establishment survey estimates are not updated based on this preliminary benchmark revision.
The final benchmark revision will be incorporated into official estimates with the publication of the
January 2026 Employment Situation news release in February 2026.