When will mass US government firings show up in data?

So far, few indications of those lost jobs have appeared in the various formal measures of the U.S. job market.

Economists will be keeping an eye on the data because federal government hiring has been a steady contributor to overall U.S. employment growth as the pace of private-sector hiring has eased. Over the last two years through January, the ranks of non-U.S. Postal Service federal workers as a share of overall payroll employment has edged up to 1.52% from 1.47%.

Despite that rise, the federal civilian worker share of total U.S. employment is near its historic low of 1.4% from late 2000. The federal workforce share peaked at just over 4% in the early 1950s.

Also, Trump's cuts - being carried out under the direction of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency - have not just been aimed at those directly on government payrolls but also at private companies and individuals performing contract work for the government.

A 2020 Brookings Institution study estimated that for every one federal employee there are two contractors. With that in mind, Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, estimated that with a "consensus" estimate of ultimately 300,000 DOGE-related federal job cuts, the total employment reduction could be closer to 1 million.

So when will these reductions start to materialise in the official data? Here's a guide:

WEEKLY JOBLESS CLAIMS

Each Thursday, the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration reports the number of people who the previous week had filed for state unemployment benefits for the first time. The report includes a running tally of all those who continue to collect benefits beyond one week, a figure called "continued claims" and reported with a one-week lag.

Federal employees who have lost their jobs, though, are not included in the state claims data. They are tracked separately under the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program, and the data is reported with a one-week lag.

In the latest week ended February 8, 613 initial claims had been filed by former federal workers, and that figure has not climbed above 1,000 in more than two years. It also remains below the level typically seen during comparable seasons in the years immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the previous week, 7,110 former federal workers were receiving continued benefits, around the same number seen at this time of year in the last two years. Moreover, those continued claims tended to be much higher during comparable times of year before the pandemic.

Since the Trump and Musk cuts are not aimed only at those earning a government paycheck, some indications of the extent of job losses may start appearing soon in data from individual states with high concentrations of jobs supported by federal government activities.

Washington and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia are home to hundreds of thousands of workers whose employers perform work under federal contracts, making them key locations to watch.

Only Washington has shown an uptrend in new benefits filings. In the latest week ended February 15, the advance number of new filings was about 1,700 and the highest in nearly two years. It is also well above the level typically seen in the years just before the pandemic, with the exception of a short-lived spike in January 2019 due to a government shutdown over a budget impasse.

New claims in Maryland and Virginia, meanwhile, have both averaged about 2,800 per week since Trump took office on January 20, both within the trend range over the last year.

Texas, Florida, California and Georgia also have high numbers of federal workers and associated contractors.

There are some caveats.

Not everyone who loses a job is eligible for jobless benefits, and this includes certain contract workers. So some job losses will never appear in the weekly claims data.

Also, not everyone files for benefits immediately after losing a job - or at all. Many people don't file for a week or more after their job was eliminated, and some among them will find new work promptly and never have a need to seek government support. That said, a generally slowing job market may mean that final dynamic is less at play this time around.

NONFARM PAYROLLS

Each month, typically on the first Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the U.S. employment situation, which updates the unemployment rate as well as the total level of employment and levels and changes by sector, including local, state and federal government employment.

The next report is due on March 7, covering February. It is based on a survey conducted during the week when the 12th day of the month falls. In this case, that was a week when news reports about firings within the federal government began circulating widely, so there is a chance that the level of non-USPS civilian employment was affected by that development.

Net federal hiring outside the postal service totaled 3,700 in January. It has averaged about 5,700 a month over the last two years and has shrunk in just one month in that span. It is unclear whether the reports of firings that surfaced during the week of February 9-16 would have been made official and reported in that week's BLS survey.

Trump shrunk federal civilian employment by about 17,000 workers in his first year of office during his first term, including about 13,000 in his first three months. But it began growing again, and by the time the pandemic struck he had overseen an expansion in the federal workforce of 60,000 people.

JOB OPENINGS AND LABOR TURNOVER SURVEY

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) measures the number of posted job vacancies on the last day of each month, and also estimates the monthly number of gross hirings and job separations, including people who quit, are laid off, or leave for another reason such as retirement.

It is not as timely as the payrolls report. The next report, for instance, will be issued on March 11, covering January. As a snapshot of where things stood at the end of the month, it could reflect Trump's January 20 hiring freeze order, which directed that all job postings be removed and many job offers rescinded.

The latest figure, for December, showed 140,000 federal government job vacancies, roughly in line with the monthly average over the term of former President Joe Biden. Monthly federal openings totaled about 110,000 during Trump's first term from January 2017 to January 2021.

Gross federal hiring, meanwhile, totaled 30,000 in December - unchanged for three months and the lowest number since May 2018.

STATE AND LOCAL PAYROLLS REPORTS

The BLS also provides monthly state and local employment reports.

The next State Employment and Unemployment report will be issued on March 17, covering January. This report shows employment levels, job gains and losses and unemployment rates across all 50 states, Washington, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

It shows government employment levels but combines state, local and federal government figures. Still, it will be another resource for indications of government contractors shedding jobs, especially in areas of high concentrations of these employers.

However, it is not likely that this will make itself evident before the report for February is issued in mid-April.

The Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary, meanwhile, tracks employment across nearly 400 metropolitan areas across the U.S. This has an even longer delay, of two months, and shows payroll employment levels, changes and jobless rates but does not show employment sector activity.

The earliest this might be expected to reflect the effects of federal firings at the local level will be in late April when the report for February is issued.