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 May estimate of 178K new nonfarm private employment jobs, an increase over April's revised 163K.

The 178K estimate came in below the Investing.com consensus of 186K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 183K nonfarm private new jobs and the unemployment rate to remain at 3.9%. Their forecast for the May full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) is 188K.

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

“The hot job market has cooled slightly as the labor market continues to tighten,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Healthcare and professional services remain a model of consistency and continue to serve as the main drivers of growth in the services sector and the broader labor market as well.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Job growth is strong, but slowing, as businesses are unable to fill a record number of open positions. Wage growth is accelerating in response, most notably for young, new entrants and those hanging jobs. Finding workers is increasingly becoming businesses number one problem.”

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

(Click on image to enlarge)