By now it is futile to point out the woeful inability of the ADP report to predict the NFP’s ARIMA X 12 output of pure noise so we’ll leave it at that. Here is the headline: May private payrolls created 135K with consensus looking for 165K – only two analysts were looking for a weaker number. This was the second lowest print since September excluding only the April 113K print. What’s worse is that the prior number which usually is revised to match the NFP was revised lower from 119K to 113K, confirming that the quality of NFP reporting in the past month is suspect to quite suspect. Don’t expect the imminent arrival of a manufacturing renaissance: mfg jobs were down 6,000. But fear not – Mark Zandi blames it on the sequester: “Manufacturers are reducing payrolls. The softer job market this spring is largely due to significant fiscal drag from tax increases and government spending cuts.” At least it wasn’t the May weather or tornadoes…
The report breakdown:
