How big a plus? 201,000, to be exact. The ADP employment report is put out by the private payroll processor and is something I usually work into my preview of the monthly jobs number that's generated by the Labor Department.
This time around I'm going to give it its own post because tomorrow's government report is so important. Remember: Our unemployment rate is at 8.3 percent nationally. We haven't had a 200,000-job month since early this year. And the sitting President will be accepting the Democratic Party's nomination...tonight. Taking all this into account, you have an August jobs report that's a much bigger deal than usual. Especially given the pressure that the Federal Reserve is under to undertake another round fo "quantitative easing," injecting money into the U.S. economy to improve growth and lower unemployment.
For the record, ADP can be way off, differing substantially from what the Bureau of Labor Statistics' economists crank out. That said, it's worth taking a look at, to draw a bead on what the official national number might be. The ADP report can also be a good indicator for small-business hiring. In August, it says that businesses with up to 49 workers saw the biggest positive move in August: 99,000.
Stay tuned for my full August jobs preview, coming later today. And join me at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time for the Labor Department's much-anticipated report on Friday.
