First Look At November: ADP Says 534K 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 November estimate of 534K nonfarm private employment jobs gained, a decrease over the ADP revised October figure of 570K.

The 534K estimate came in above the Investing.com consensus of 525K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 530K private nonfarm jobs gained and the unemployment rate to drop to 4.5%. Their forecast for the November new full nonfarm jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 550K.

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

“The labor market recovery continued to power through its challenges last month,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “November’s job gains bring the three month average to 543,000 monthly jobs added, a modest uptick from the job pace earlier this year. Job gains have eclipsed 15 million since the recovery began, though 5 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels. Service providers, which are more vulnerable to the pandemic, have dominated job gains this year. It’s too early to tell if the Omicron variant could potentially slow the jobs recovery in coming months.”

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