by Calculated Risk on 9/06/2016 06:21:00 PM

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 10:00 AM: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for July from the BLS. Jobs openings increased in June to 5.624 million from 5.514 million in May. The number of job openings were up 9% year-over-year, and Quits were up 6% year-over-year.

• Also at 10:00 AM, the 2016 Current Employment Statistics (CES) Preliminary Benchmark Revision.

• At 2:00 PM, the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts.

On the Benchmark Revision: Tomorrow, the BLS will release the preliminary annual Benchmark Revision for the Current Employment Statistics. The final revision will be published next February when the January 2017 employment report is released. Usually the preliminary estimate is pretty close to the final benchmark estimate.

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

Each year, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the month of March. These counts are derived from state unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file. On September 7, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. (EST) the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the preliminary estimate of the annual benchmark revision to the establishment survey employment series.

With the release of the final benchmark estimate in February, total payroll employment in March 2016 will changed by the amount of the revision. The number is then "wedged back" to the previous revision (March 2015).

For details on the benchmark revision process, see from the BLS Benchmark Article Over the last 3 years, the benchmark revision has subtracted an average of about 75,000 jobs.