NFP growth beats Bloomberg consensus by 46K (private NFP by 36K). Looking at several measures of NFP (total, private) suggests continued growth.

Figure 1: Private nonfarm payroll employment from CES (blue, left scale), from ADP (tan, left scale), total nonfarm payroll employment from CES (bold black, right scale), NFP adjusted for preliminary benchmark by author (red, right scale), Bloomberg consensus of 1/3 (salmon +), employment from CPS adjusted to NFP concept (pink, right scale), from Philadelphia Fed early benchmark (red, right scale), all s.a.. Source: BLS, ADP, via FRED, BLS, Philadelphia Fed, and author’s calculations.

The December Bloomberg consensus level (calculated off the preliminary benchmark) is slightly above the actual results because November and October employment were revised downward.

The household survey based alternative measure of NFP declined, but it’s useful to recall that this series has a much higher variance than the establishment series. Further recall the ADP series, based upon a completely different data set than the BLS surveys, indicates continued growth in December.