Global| May 03 2006ADP National Employment Report & U.S. Payrolls
Summary
Today, ADP, the well-known payroll processors for many employers, published an estimate of the upcoming nonfarm payroll data for April, pointing to an increase in private sector employment of 178,000 for the month (1.9% y/y). They [...]
Today, ADP, the well-known payroll processors for many employers, published an estimate of the upcoming nonfarm payroll data for April, pointing to an increase in private sector employment of 178,000 for the month (1.9% y/y). They have compiled this from their substantial database of individual companies' payroll information. Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC, the St. Louis economic consulting firm, developed the methodology for transforming the raw data into an economic indicator meant to project the BLS's official number. This 178,000 gain would follow March's 133,000 rise.
These data are called the "ADP National Employment Report". The series will be maintained in Haver's USECON database; historical data go back to December 2000. Importantly, the figures in this report cover only private sector jobs and exclude employment in the public sector, which grew an average of 13,000 per month over the last year. The monthly change also obviously varies, and indeed ranged from a decline of 34,000 to an increase of 35,000. This would be a significant difference between the ADP number and total nonfarm payrolls. Some analysts indicated that ADP's April estimate of 178,000 in private sector jobs would correspond to a gain in total payrolls of 200,000.
Unlike other indicators of the US labor market, such as unemployment insurance claims, the ADP measure is directly comparable to the kind of data in the official BLS report. Automatic Data Processing, Inc. is the nation's leading provider of payroll-related services. Their figure is based on information about 24,000,000 jobholders; this is distilled to cover the numbers actually on payrolls during the BLS survey week, about 14,000,000. The report will be issued at 8:15AM on the Wednesday prior to each employment release.
According to ADP and Macro Advisers, the correlation between the monthly percentage change in the ADP estimate and that in the BLS data is 0.90. The estimator is shown by the firms' analysis to outperform current "consensus" forecasts and models based on claims data.
The full ADP National Employment Report can be found here, and their methodology is explained here.
| LAXEPA@USECON | April | Mar | Y/Y | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nonfarm Private Payroll Employment (Chg.) | 178,000 | 133,000 | 1.9% | 1.7% | 1.3% | -0.4% |
Carol Stone, CBE
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Carol Stone, CBE came to Haver Analytics in 2003 following more than 35 years as a financial market economist at major Wall Street financial institutions, most especially Merrill Lynch and Nomura Securities. She has broad experience in analysis and forecasting of flow-of-funds accounts, the federal budget and Federal Reserve operations. At Nomura Securites, among other duties, she developed various indicator forecasting tools and edited a daily global publication produced in London and New York for readers in Tokyo. At Haver Analytics, Carol is a member of the Research Department, aiding database managers with research and documentation efforts, as well as posting commentary on select economic reports. In addition, she conducts Ways-of-the-World, a blog on economic issues for an Episcopal-Church-affiliated website, The Geranium Farm. During her career, Carol served as an officer of the Money Marketeers and the Downtown Economists Club. She has a PhD from NYU's Stern School of Business. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has a weekend home on Long Island.
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