First Look At February: ADP Says 183K 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).

Today we have the ADP February estimate of 183K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over the ADP revised January figure of 209K.

The 183K estimate came in above the Investing.com consensus of 170K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 160K new private nonfarm private jobs and the unemployment rate to remain at 3.6%. Their forecast for the February full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 175K.

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

“The labor market remains firm, as private-sector payrolls continued to expand in February,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Job creation remained heavily concentrated in large companies, which continue to be the strongest performer.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “COVID-19 will need to break through the job market firewall if it is to do significant damage to the economy. The firewall has some cracks, but judging by the February employment gain it should be strong enough to weather most scenarios.”

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

(Click on image to enlarge)