A Levels Perspective on the Employment Situation Release

From today’s release, +133K v +66K Bloomberg consensus on NFP:

Figure 1: Reported (post-benchmark) nonfarm payroll employment (bold black), pre-benchmark NFP (gray), implied preliminary benchmark (blue), implied preliminary benchmark (red), implied Goldman Sachs (purple), CPS series adjusted to NFP concept (teal), all in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS, BLS via FRED, Philadelphia Fed, Goldman Sachs, and author’s calculations.

The upside surprise to NFP in this graph does not alter the basic view of a slowdown in employment growth. It’s also important to keep in mind that the 1st-3rd mean absolute revision in 2024 was 48K. The +133K vs. +66K consensus constitutes a 1.5 MAE miss.

Nonetheless, the picture that’s painted is one very similar to that indicated by the implied preliminary benchmark (wedge in -911K for 2024M04-25M03, reported changes thereafter). The widening gap between output measures and employment measures remains.

For private NFP employment, we have a check with ADP data. Here’s cumulative change from 2024M01:

Figure 2: Change since 2024M01 in reported (post-benchmark) private nonfarm payroll employment (bold black), pre-benchmark NFP (gray), implied preliminary benchmark (blue), implied preliminary benchmark (red), ADP (light brown, all in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS, BLS via FRED, ADP and author’s calculations.

It’s interesting that the ADP series did not show a comparable increase in private employment.

Finally, manufacturing registered an increase (+5K vs. -5K consensus), which however did not change the trajectory overall trajectory since 2025M01. The increase also did not manifest in the ADP series, which has trended down faster than the post-benchmark BLS series.

Figure 3: Change since 2025M01 in reported (post-benchmark) private nonfarm payroll employment (bold black), pre-benchmark NFP (gray), implied preliminary benchmark (blue), implied preliminary benchmark (red), ADP (light brown, all in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS, BLS via FRED, ADP and author’s calculations.

Either way, manufacturing employment has not rebounded, and the drop accelerated post-“Liberation Day”.

 

 

 

 

 

3 thoughts on “A Levels Perspective on the Employment Situation Release”

  1. Mactoduck

    We have been instructed by our racist overlords that the only important measures of employment are those for native-born workers. Oops:

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1RCkB

    Native-born unemployment is trending higher, while the y/y* gains in emoyment are slipping away.

    *This series is not seasonally adjusted, so year-over-year comparisons are the way to go.

  2. Truther@region1.cpm

    Shutdown recovery, nothing more or less. 100000 of the jobs were directly related to shutdown spending. Even the 5000 manufacturing jobs were a lag. Next month won’t be so kind.

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