This week we celebrated Independence Day on Wednesday, the Fourth of July. This week was also Jobs Week. We received the ADP Payroll Report, the weekly Unemployment Claims Report, and the June Jobs Report.
(July 3) The first jobs report that is released each month is the ADP Payroll report. The data that is released with the report is all seasonally adjusted data. This makes the forecast easier and harder at the same time. "ADP Payroll Forecast: Jumping Higher for All ?" examined the trends in the sector data and found that all private sectors should have added to their payroll during the month of June. The question mark was information and technology. The month to month data projected a range of 178,000 to 253,000 workers could have been added during June, while the June to June growth rates projected a range of 273,000 to 380,000 jobs being added. The overlap was between 253,000 and 273,000 jobs. The question was how the revisions from the prior month would impact the current month.
(July 3) The June Employment Report, or Jobs Report, forecast was a bit more detailed. There are two data sets that are used to create the Jobs Report: The Current Population Survey (CPS) data and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) data. The CES data, private sector and non-farm payroll worker data, provides information on sectors and workers. The CPS data provides information on unemployed workers, full-time jobs, part-time jobs, the workforce population, and from that we receive information on the participation rate and the unemployment rate. "June Jobs Report: How High Can It Go?" examined the month to month trends and June to June Trends and found that the non-seasonally adjusted data for CES workers could jump by 1 million workers, that the seasonal factors would bring that value down to 240,000 to 280,000 workers joining the workforce, seasonally adjusted (SA.) that the full-time jobs level, NSA, could soar, the PT jobs could plummet, and the unemployment level, and unemployment rate, would almost certainly spike. The spike in FT jobs and Unemployment would most likely cause the participation rate to jump higher,
(July 5) The ADP report was released just prior to the weekly unemployment claims report. "June ADP: All Sectors Added Workers Except IT" detailed that the monthly growth rate and the weekly growth rate were stronger than June 2017 and stronger than May 2018, and that upward revisions to the prior month data reduced the headline ADP number for June.
(July 5) Unemployment edged higher during the recent report survey period. It is still near the lowest levels ever recorded for the current week of the year. Remember that we have over 140 million covered insured now while during the early 1970s we had fewer than 53 million covered insured. the "Weekly Unemployment Claims Data is Still Solidly Low."
(July 6) Friday was "Jobs in America Friday." The article "June Jobs Report Jarringly Good" detail how we saw over 1 million NSA CES private sector workers join the economy, how the seasonal factor reduced the number to 202,000 SA CES workers, and how the data for May was revised up 33,000 workers. This means that the headline number could have been recorded over 300,000. Full-time jobs did soar, part-time jobs did drop significantly, and unemployment exploded. Participation was astounding. The non-seasonally adjusted data did record a drop in Government workers and Education/Health Services workers, as projected. All sectors reported SA CES worker growth.
This week the data we received on the economy was stunningly good. It will take many articles to give the Jobs Report the respect it is due. Stay tuned next week for "Five Presidents at 17 Months," "The War on (Wo)Men," and the "Wages and Workers" series.
It's the Economy.