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 27K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over the ADP revised April figure of 271K.

The 27K estimate came in below the Investing.com consensus of 180K 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 3.6%. Their forecast for the May full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 185K.

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

“Following an overly strong April, May marked the smallest gain since the expansion began,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Large companies continue to remain strong as they are better equipped to compete for labor in a tight labor market.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Job growth is moderating. Labor shortages are impeding job growth, particularly at small companies, and layoffs at brick-and-mortar retailers are hurting.”

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