At the beginning of every month, we have two jobs reports that traditionally come out. On the first we get the “official” numbers told to us by the Federal Government. The day before that we get numbers from the ADP. Typically, the numbers are very similar with variations between the two reports almost always below a 50k job difference.
In January 2022, the ADP originally claimed we lost 301,000 jobs. Other institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, predicted similar losses in that month at 250,000 jobs lost. Some experts, according to CNN, had predicted perhaps 150,000 jobs added.
It was beyond shocking when the next day CNN reported a gain of 467,000 jobs, defying every single known prediction by a landslide, and completely contradicting their own publication from the day before. They swallowed that news like a spoonful of sugar, never once questioning anything. Both articles can still be found here and here.
Fast forward to this month and we have yet another discrepancy, although this time not nearly as dramatic.
Yesterday, the Gateway Pundit reported on ADP’s published report that showed we lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs but gained, overall, 127,000 jobs.
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published numbers that were, once again, significantly off from the ADP numbers reported and higher than expected. Yet, these numbers were the lowest since December 2020 and tied with March 2021, according to Zerohedge:
It was supposed to be the lowest payrolls report since December 2020 and… it was, but not how the market expected. With consensus expecting a 200K print (and whisper predicting much lower amid the mass tech layoffs), virtually nobody – not even Goldman – expected anything resembling a beat. And while we did in fact get the weakest print since Dec 2020 (and tied with March 2021), the report was a completely unexpected beat to expectations, coming in at +263K, this was a huge beat to expectations of 200K (the 7th consecutive beat) and just barely a drop compared to the upward revised 284K last month.
As ADP reported, the biggest gains for November were in hospitality, healthcare, and government.
This was the 7th consecutive month that the “official” jobs report beat the predicted numbers.