Even with the government shutdown’s imminent end, it may be a while before we get official readings on employment, maybe never for October’s household series. Here’s what I’ve cobbled together, using ADP data, and guesses for government employment:

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Figure 1: Implied preliminary benchmark revision nonfarm payroll series (bold black), forecast based on ADP private NFP (light blue), +/- 1 se band (gray lines),(both in 000’s, s.a. Private NFP estimated using 2022M01-25M08 regression [1]. NFP for 2025M09 uses 14K decrease in government employment, 150K DRP-related decrease in 2025M10 per Treasury. Standard error bands for private NFP only. Source: BLS, ADP and author’s calculations.

Note that -150K is cited by Treasury, and at low end of McEntarfer‘s cuts at Federal level. I further assume no other non-DRP related Federal cuts, and state and local level employment stays constant.

How does cumulative estimated NFP employment growth then stack up against alternative estimates? Here are calculations for growth since 2025M01.

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Figure 2: Implied preliminary benchmark revision nonfarm payroll series (bold black), forecast based on ADP private NFP (light blue), Bloomberg consensus of 10/3 (teal inverted triangle), Goldman Sachs(light green), and Revelio estimate (red), all in 000’s, s.a.Source: BLS, ADP, Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs (11/11), Revelio Labs (11/6), and author’s calculations.

GS is more optimistic on September employment growth (+85K vs +42K Bbg consensus), and more optimistic on October growth (-50K vs. -115K my estimate). Both GS and Revelio Labs imply continued — albeit very modest — growth in the two months since August, in contrast to my (somewhat mechanical) forecast.

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