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 April estimate of 173K new nonfarm private employment jobs from ADP, an increase from April’s 166K, which was an upward revision from 156K.
The 173K estimate came in slightly below the Investing.com forecast of 175K for the ADP number.
The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 162K nonfarm new jobs (the actual PAYEMS number).
Here is an excerpt from today’s ADP report:
“Job creation appears to have slowed as we move further into 2016,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, VP and head of the ADP Research Institute. “Challenging global conditions affecting hiring at large companies and a tightening labor market for skilled workers are among the factors that may be contributing to the slowdown.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Job growth has moderated this spring as energy companies and manufacturers shed jobs. Retailers are also more circumspect in their hiring. Despite the recent slowdown, job growth remains strong enough to reduce underemployment.”
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 complete list of monthly employment updates:
Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle
