Private payrolls increased 166,000 last month on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to today’s release of the ADP Employment Report. That’s a bit more than August’s 159,000 advance, although the pace remains sluggish compared with recent history in terms of monthly comparisons. On a brighter note, the year-over-year change in private payrolls turned higher again in September, rising 1.88% last month vs. the year-earlier level. That’s the fifth straight month of improvement for the annual rate of increase, according to ADP numbers. As a result, last month’s year-over-year gain is the highest in more than a year. Overall, the ADP data implies that Friday’s official payrolls report from the government would also dispatch slightly better numbers from the previous month… if the report was released. Thanks to the government shutdown, however, Friday’s Labor Department update looks set to remain a mystery until further notice.
Daily Archives: October 2, 2013
Who Moved My Economic Data?
One of the victims of the federal government’s shutdown is the delay of economic reports. Analyzing the business cycle is hard enough under normal circumstances, but let’s see what happens as we try to dissect the macro tea leaves with a bout of partial blindness for an indeterminate amount of time. That includes going dark on Friday’s September payrolls report, which had been scheduled for release by the Labor Department but is now postponed until further notice. All the more reason to focus on today’s ADP Employment Report, which may end up as the only number available this week for analyzing changes in September’s payrolls.