Courtesy of Doug Short’s Advisor Perspectives.
The economic mover and shaker this week is Friday’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This monthly report contains a wealth of data for economists, the most publicized being the month-over-month change in Total Nonfarm Employment (the PAYEMS series in the FRED repository). Today we have the August estimate of 177K new nonfarm private employment jobs from ADP, a decline from July’s 194K, which was a substantial upward revision from 19K. June was revised downward by 4K.
The 177K estimate came in slightly above the Investing.com forecast of 175 for the ADP number.
The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 180K nonfarm new jobs (the actual PAYEMS number).
Here is an excerpt from today’s ADP report:
“Job growth in August was stable and consistent with levels from previous months as consumer conditions improve,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and head of the ADP Research Institute. “Continued strong growth in service-providing jobs is offset by weakness in goods-producing areas.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “The American job machine continues to hum along. Job creation remains strong, with most industries and companies of all sizes adding solidly to their payrolls. The U.S. economy will soon be at full employment.”
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.
Here’s our list of monthly employment updates:
Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle
