TROUBLING TERMINATION

The only reason employment data revisions are noticeably larger is due entirely to low response rates by surveyed businesses. Pre-Covid, response rates on the initial survey were 80%, now they’re below 60%. By the third wave, response rates are where they were pre-Covid, 94%. Lower response rates mean larger standard errors, and larger eventual revisions. Rather than shooting the messenger, fine firms who refuse to quickly respond to the survey.