First Look At December: ADP Says 807K New Nonfarm Private Jobs

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).

This morning we have the ADP December estimate of 807K nonfarm private employment jobs gained, an increase over the ADP revised November figure of 505K.

The 807K estimate came in above the Investing.com consensus of 400K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 365K private nonfarm jobs gained and the unemployment rate to drop to 4.1%. Their forecast for the December new full nonfarm jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 400K.

Here is an excerpt from today's ADP report press release:

“December’s job market strengthened as the fallout from the Delta variant faded and Omicron’s impact had yet to be seen,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Job gains were broad-based, as goods producers added the strongest reading of the year, while service providers dominated growth. December’s job growth brought the fourth quarter average to 625,000, surpassing the 514,000 average for the year. While job gains eclipsed 6 million in 2021, private sector payrolls are still nearly 4 million jobs short of pre-COVID-19 levels.”

Here is a visualization of the two series over the previous twelve months.