ADP Release, and the Flat Employment Growth in Q2 Thesis

The relatively volatile household survey employment series and the Philadelphia Fed’s estimated preliminary benchmark adjusted series suggest flat employment in Q2 (although NOT in H1); see graphs in this post. The ADP release on private nonfarm payroll (NFP) employment today (surprising on the upside 235K vs 150K consensus) suggests otherwise, when taking into account the relatively small change in government employment over the relevant period.

Figure 1: Cumulative change in private nonfarm payroll employment relative to 2021M12, from BLS (blue), Bloomberg consensus of 1/5 (blue +), ADP (purple), and QCEW private covered employment, seasonally adjusted by author using X-13 (orange), all in 000’s, s.a. Arrows/numbers denote change between 2022M03 to 2022M06, in 000’s. A hypothesized 2022H1 recession peak-to-trough recession period shaded lilac. Source: BLS, ADP via FRED, Bloomberg, BLS and author’s calculations.

Note that ADP indicates 1.2 million net new private employment, vs. 1 million, for the period between March and June — rather than essentially zero as indicated for total nonfarm payroll employment (over this period, BLS indicates only 55 thousand net new government jobs, so change in private NFP translates pretty much to total NFP). QCEW private employment also rises 1.5 million, although the result depends on seasonal adjustment method; using geometric moving average, the increase is 98 thousand.

Since ADP uses a completely different sample and is not calibrated to match the BLS establishment series (in its revampled methodoloy), I find it likely that private NFP probably did increase substantially in Q2.

So is this a question of seasonal adjustment? Here’s the corresponding graph for not seasonally adjusted data.

Figure 2: Cumulative change in private nonfarm payroll employment relative to 2021M12, from BLS (blue), ADP (purple), and QCEW private covered employment (orange), all in 000’s, s.a. Arrows/numbers denote change between 2022M03 to 2022M06, in 000’s. A hypothesized 2022H1 recession peak-to-trough recession period shaded lilac. Source: BLS, ADP via FRED, BLS and author’s calculations.

The QCEW change of 2.5 million is indeed less than the BLS establishment survey series of 3.1 million; but it’s a difference of 600K, not over a million.

So, bottom line:

  • In 2022H1, employment rose.
  • In 2022Q2, private nonfarm payroll employment likely rose.

And I (still) doubt a recession will be called for 2022H1.

9 thoughts on “ADP Release, and the Flat Employment Growth in Q2 Thesis

  1. pgl

    “The ADP release on private nonfarm payroll (NFP) employment today suggests otherwise, when taking into account the relatively small change in government employment over the relevant period.”

    Who to trust? An actual count or a survey? Of course we know Princeton Steve mines the data until he can anything to support whatever his thesis of the day happens to be. Who to trust?!

  2. pgl

    Watching right wingers go after each other is so much fun!

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chip-roy-issues-fiery-response-after-gingrich-calls-anti-mccarthy-bloc-blackmailers/ar-AA160x9w

    Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, pushed back on former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich Wednesday after Gingrich called Roy and 19 other House Republicans “blackmailers” for opposing Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for speaker. During an interview on WMAL radio’s “O’Connor & Company,” Roy said Gingrich, who served as House speaker from 1995 to 1999, “doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”

    “If Newt Gingrich wants to pick up the phone and call me, then he might actually know the facts. You might have been speaker 25 years ago, but you don’t know the facts right now and you’re parroting the talking points that are being shoved through the system in this town, that are being fed by the big spending machine that has been driving this country into the ditch,” he said. “I don’t have any time for listening to fossils, sitting on Fox News, making their money on their contracts, coming out and talking about things they don’t know anything about,” Roy added.

      1. pgl

        Among the Members who were very active in hatching the attempted coup were GOP Reps. Matt Salmon (Ariz.), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), Bob Inglis (S.C.), Steve Largent (Okla.), Mark Neumann (Wis.), Mark Sanford (S.C.), Joe Scarborough (Fla.) and Mark Souder (Ind.). “While they disavow any intention right now to unseat Gingrich, the 11 have met recently to discuss how to recapture … the ‘Contract with America feeling’ that animated them in the 104th Congress,” Roll Call reported.

        Scarborough never grows tired of boring the Morning Joe viewers about how he got rid of Newt. Now I never liked Newt but Joe needs to move on.

        1. Moses Herzog

          “Joe” will be talking about that 30 years from now. His DC days were very abbreviated because he’s not that bright to start with, and his monster-ego creates a fog that makes it hard for him to view reality. So, he has to “re-live” his “peak moment” over and over and over again, no matter how much it bores everyone around him. Just imagine how his haggardly botox poisoned wife feels. I detest the woman, but even I feel sad for her, thinking of how many times she’s had to sit through his telling that Jurassic era tale.

      2. Macroduck

        Gingrich pulled money and power to the top of the GOP, which meant Republican lawmakers necessarily became more ideological and less responsive to constituents. The Tea Party/Freedom Caucus is fine with being ideological (though not coherently ideological), but objects to the centralization of power. Unless power centers around them, of course, but that would mean power in service of incoherence. This spat between Gingrich-the-centralizer and the fragmenters of GOP discipline is entirely understandable.

        Gingrich is reaping what he sewed. Demonizing opponents, demonizing government, refusing compromise, demanding ideological unity – Gingich made these political ills central to Republican politics. Now that these characteristics have reached natural result, Gingrich cries “foul”. Big baby.

  3. Macroduck

    China probably has 14,700 new covid cases per day, says one non-political model:

    https://www.newsweek.com/china-covid-19-infections-death-airfinity-model-1771217

    Compared to the 28% infection rate discovered by arrivals testing in Taiwan, 14,700 per day is low. China admits to 461,825 total cases of Covid – ever . That’s about 10% of the annual rate of infection if the Airfinity model is right.

    A 1% mortality rate would imply 147 deaths per day, 53,655 per year. Given the high mortality rate and low vaccination rate among China’s elderly, a 1% mortality rate is probably low. If the infection rate is 28%, the annual number of deaths would be much higher than 53,655.

    ltr insists that only 5,253 Chinese have ever dies from Covid. That’s just ludicrous. There is a wide range of estimates in circulation from credible sources. All of them are orders of magnitude higher than the number ltr annoys us with. Heck, if anyone (me, for instance) challenges the ridiculous number ltr posts, she simply posts it again in the same comments que, as if toxic persistence amounts to evidence.

    ltr is lying, and insulting the rest of us in doing so.

    Aside from the insult of being lied to, these numbers attract because China’s economic performance matters. We cannot hope to understand the outlook for the global economy when relying on lies about China.

  4. Moses Herzog

    https://twitter.com/LisaDNews/status/1611113345783832576?cxt=HHwWgICxxanD6dssAAAA

    https://twitter.com/LisaDNews/status/1611110403517386760?cxt=HHwWkMC4-YeY6NssAAAA

    I have a lot of respect for Lisa Desjardins, she is hands down the best television congressional reporter. PERIOD. And she seems to be implying that McCarthy’s “best option” (political survival) is dropping out. I certainly see the odds of that as being much higher, than Congressmen not present during vote tallies dictating who becomes the next Speaker.

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