ADP Payrolls Offers Large Boost for Friday’s Payrolls Data

The ADP payrolls projection for the month of July is going to act as a potential boost to the key unemployment and payrolls data due this Friday. ADP said that its projection of private payrolls showed a gain of 163,000 in the month of July. This is substantially ahead of estimates as Bloomberg expected the July figure to be 120,000. Bloomberg also had a range of 75,000 to 166,000 from its economists that it surveyed.

We have been seeing mixed data in the economic reports in recent days and weeks, and we would caution that this can often be very different from the formal Labor Department’s payrolls report. That being said, this will unofficially (or officially) ratchet expectations higher on Friday.

The formal jobs report is due at 8:30 a.m. EST on Friday and the Bloomberg consensus estimate is 100,000 nonfarm payrolls created. Private payrolls are expected to be up 110,000, and the unemployment rate is expected to remain flat at 8.2%. Dow Jones is calling for 95,000 in nonfarm payrolls and 8.2% unemployment. Be advised that the nonfarm payrolls rose by a modest 80,000 in June, and that was after paltry gains of 77,000 in May and only 68,000 in April.

Right now any good news is great news, as long as it doesn’t eliminate the need for more easing and accommodative measures from Ben Bernanke and the FOMC.

JON C. OGG