Employment: Preliminary annual benchmark revision shows upward adjustment of 345,000 jobs

This morning the BLS released the preliminary annual benchmark revision showing an additional 345,000 payroll jobs as of March 2013. The final revision will be published next February when the January 2014 employment report is released in February 2014. Usually the preliminary estimate is pretty close to the final benchmark estimate.

The annual revision is benchmarked to state tax records. From the BLS:

In accordance with usual practice, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is announcing the preliminary estimate of the upcoming annual benchmark revision to the establishment survey employment series. The final benchmark revision will be issued in February 2014, with the publication of the January 2014 Employment Situation news release.

Each year, employment estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment for the month of March. These counts are derived from State Unemployment Insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file. For National CES employment series, the annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have averaged plus or minus three-tenths of one percent of Total nonfarm employment. The preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision indicates an upward adjustment to March 2013 Total nonfarm employment of 345,000 (0.3 percent). This revision is impacted by a large non-economic code change in the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) that moves approximately 469,000 in employment from Private households, which is out-of-scope for CES, to the Education and health care services industry, which is in scope. After accounting for this movement, the estimate of the revision to the over-the-year change in CES from March 2012 to March 2013 is a downward revision of 124,000. ...

Using the preliminary benchmark estimate, this means that payroll employment in March 2013 was 345,000 higher than originally estimated. In February 2014, the payroll numbers will be revised up to reflect this estimate. The number is then "wedged back" to the previous revision (March 2012).

This preliminary estimate showed an additional 333,000 private sector jobs, and 12,000 government jobs (as of March 2013).  Note: The revision would have been negative except for the reclassification of certain jobs (that weren't previously included in the payroll report).