According to the Labor Department August and September seemed like they were indicating a job market just out of gas.

Initial data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department indicated that August had seen payrolls growth of just 235,000While September was stuck at 194,000. They were both well below Wall Street expectations.

What a difference two months of time can make.

When the BLS had finished counting August, it was at 483,000. That’s more than double the initial estimate. The final revision for September was at 379k, almost doubling the initial count.

In the two subsequent months following the initial report, the BLS will issue revisions.

This year, such wild changes were commonplace. In fact, revisions from the first estimate to the third and final release have added nearly 1 million jobs to the initial releases — 976,000 to be exact, through October. In contrast, revisions in 2019 totalled just 101,000 while 2020 suffered from a pandemic and saw a net loss at 719,000.

However, the Labor Department has not yet responded to our request for comments on these revisions.

Wall Street took a prudent approach to evaluating November’s hugely disappointing performance. nonfarm payrolls increased 210,000This is well under the Dow Jones estimate of 573,000.

Gus Faucher (chief economist, PNC Financial Group) stated that although the November headline jobs numbers were disappointing, overall the report was very good. The BLS has consistently revised job growth higher in recent months as new employer records are made available. Also, the large jump in household employment for November suggests that there is a likely upward revision.

In fact, all other indicators that measure the state of the labor force are strongly positive.

The weekly number of jobless claims for week-ends was at its lowest since 1969, two weeks ago. last week’s 222,000This was closer to what the employment market looked like before the pandemic, rather than with the strains that were associated with March 2020.

If the November total is consistent with 2021’s revisions, then the final report would be close to 300,000. It would fall well short of the average 11-month-to-date 555,000. But, since the last three months saw an average upward revision of 193,000 per month, it is possible that these numbers may be much higher.