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 December estimate of 271K new nonfarm private employment jobs, an increase over the ADP revised November figure of 157K.

The 271K estimate came in above the Investing.com consensus of 179K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 175K new nonfarm private jobs and the unemployment rate to remain at 3.7%. Their forecast for the December full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 177K.

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

“We wrapped up 2018 with another month of significant growth in the labor market,“ said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Although there were increases in most sectors, the busy holiday season greatly impacted both trade and leisure and hospitality. Small businesses also experienced their strongest month of job growth all year.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Businesses continue to add aggressively to their payrolls despite the stock market slump and the trade war. Favorable December weather also helped lift the job market. At the current pace of job growth, low unemployment will get even lower.”

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