ADP Employment Rises, Beats By Most In 2015, Fed Confirms Job Mandate Has Been Met

From “pumping out lots of jobs” in September to “not slowing meaningfully” in October, and despite consistent job losses in manufacturing (which is odd because auto sales are so awesome, right?), ADP reports November a jump to 217k (against expectations of 190k and October’s 182k). ADP has missed expectations 8 months so far in 2015, but November’s beat is the biggest since 2014 which one could argue was just catch up from ADP’s big miss relative to BLS data (182 ADP with an upward revision to 196K now, vs 271k BLS). Of course, none of this “data” matters apparently as Fed’s Lockhart said just this morning that the Fed’s “criterion of job market improvement has been met.”

Catching up to BLS data…

The Breakdown…

Payrolls for businesses with 49 or fewer employees increased by 81,000 jobs in November, down from October’s 91,000. Employment among companies with 50-499 employees increased by 62,000 jobs, a bit less than the 67,000 added last month. Employment at large companies – those with 500 or more employees – came in double the upwardly revised 37,000 jobs added in October at 74,000 for the month. Companies with 500-999 added 57,000 jobs, the largest gain for this segment in the history of the ADP National Employment Report.Companies with over 1,000 employees gained 17,000 jobs, after adding 28,000 in October.

Spot the outlier…

(so the average monthly employment gain since 2009 for large firms has been 11k, amid carnage in the economy suddenly large firms hire 57k workers in Nov 2015… 4 standard deviations above average!!)

ADP explains…

“The strongest gains in the service sector since June led to greater employment growth in November,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, VP and head of the ADP Research Institute. “The increase was driven in large part by a rebound in professional/business service jobs.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Job growth remains strong and steady. The current pace of job creation is twice that needed to absorb growth in the working age population. The economy is fast approaching full employment and will be there no later than next summer.”