Courtesy of Doug Short.
The economic mover and shaker this week is the Friday employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This monthly report contains a wealth of data for economists, probably the most publicized in the near term being the month-over-month change in Total Nonfarm Employment (the PAYEMS series in the FRED repository).
Today we have the April estimate of 169K new nonfarm private employment jobs from ADP. That is the lowest number since the 157K in January of last year, 15 months ago. In addition, the previous month’s estimate was revised downward from 189K to 175K.
The 169K estimate came in well below the Investing.com forecast of 200K for the ADP number.
The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is 224K nonfarm new jobs (the actual PAYEMS number).
Here is an excerpt from today’s ADP report:
| Goods-producing employment declined by 1,000 jobs in April, down from 3,000 jobs gained in March. The construction industry added 23,000 jobs, up from 21,000 last month. Meanwhile, manufacturing lost 10,000 jobs in April, after losing 3,000 in March.
Service-providing employment rose by 170,000 jobs in April, down slightly from 172,000 in March. The ADP National Employment Report indicates that professional/business services contributed 34,000 jobs in April, up from March’s 28,000. Expansion in trade/transportation/utilities grew by 44,000, up from March’s 41,000. The 7,000 new jobs added in financial activities is a drop from last month’s 12,000. “April job gains came in under 200,000 for the second straight month,” said Carlos Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of ADP. “Companies with 500 or more employees had the slowest growth.” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Fallout from the collapse of oil prices and the surging value of the dollar are weighing on job creation. Employment in the energy sector and manufacturing is declining. However, this should prove temporary and job growth will reaccelerate this summer.” |
Here is a visualization of the two series over the previous twelve months.
The key difference between the two series is that the BLS series is for Nonfarm Payrolls while ADP tracks private employment.
