First Look At September - ADP Says 135K 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 September estimate of 135K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over the ADP revised August figure of 157K.

The 135K estimate came in below the Investing.com consensus of 140K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 132K new nonfarm private jobs and the unemployment rate to remain at 3.7%. Their forecast for the September full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 145K.

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

“The job market has shown signs of a slowdown,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “The average monthly job growth for the past three months is 145,000, down from 214,000 for the same time period last year.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Businesses have turned more cautious in their hiring. Small businesses have become especially hesitant. If businesses pull back any further, unemployment will begin to rise.”

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