ADP Payrolls Lifts Tempo for Labor Department December Payrolls

The ADP Payrolls report is not always an exact indication of the Labor Situation report on payrolls from the U.S. Labor Department each month, but investors, traders and speculators do generally use it for a directional call. This means that expectations of nonfarm and private sector payrolls will have to officially (or at least unofficially) rise.

ADP reported that private sector payrolls in its system rose by some 238,000 in the month of December. Dow Jones was calling for only 200,000 in the ADP report, and Bloomberg was calling for a slightly higher payrolls reading of 205,000. This was even higher than the highest estimate of 218,000 that was seen in the range of economist estimates.

Again, this should act as a catapult to official payrolls estimates for Friday’s report from the Labor Department. Bloomberg has nonfarm payrolls at a consensus of 200,000 for December, while its private sector payrolls report consensus estimate is down at 189,000.

ADP showed that small businesses were responsible for 108,000 of the new additions, followed by 59,000 from medium-sized businesses of 50-499 employees, followed by 71,000 from large businesses.

More good news for the start of 2014. Now we just have to hope that the stock market does not get spooked into thinking that this will force Janet Yellen and the Fed to end the bond buying much faster than expected.