January NFP employment growth surprises on the upside, at +275 vs. +198 thousands consensus. With combined downward revisions in the prior two months totaling 168 thousand, the level of employment is just about consistent with implied consensus. Here\u2019s a picture of key indicators followed by the NBER\u2019s Business Cycle Dating Committee, plus monthly GDP and GDPNow. Figure 1:<\/strong> Nonfarm Payroll employment incorporating benchmark revision (bold dark blue), implied level using Bloomberg consensus as of 2\/1 and December 2023 NFP (blue +), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP, 3rd release (blue bars), GDPNow for 2024Q1 as of 3\/7 (lilac box), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA 2023Q4 2nd release, S&P Global Market Insights<\/a> (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (3\/1\/<\/em>2024 release), and author\u2019s calculations.<\/em><\/p>\n While the official NFP series shows continued growth, there is some slower growth evidenced in alternative measures.<\/p>\n Figure 2:<\/strong> Nonfarm payroll employment from February release (bold red), implied level from preliminary benchmark by author and Bloomberg consensus change for February (light red +), Philadelphia Fed early benchmark (light green), household survey series on civilian employment adjusted to NFP concept as reported (pink), and QCEW covered employment for US total (chartreuse), seasonally adjusted using X-13 (in logs). Source: BLS via FRED, BLS<\/a>, Philadelphia Fed.<\/em><\/p>\n The civilian employment series (from the household survey) adjusted to the NFP shows a definite decline (reflecting in part the civilian employment in Figure 1). How much credence to put in this series? I\u2019d say less than that from the CES.<\/p>\n I say this because of the trends in independent series, including the ADP series, and to a lesser extent the QCEW covered employment for private sector.<\/p>\n Figure 4:<\/strong> BLS Private nonfarm payroll employment (red), ADP (teal), and QCEW (chartreuse). Source: BLS, ADP via FRED, BLS, and author\u2019s calculations.<\/em><\/p>\n Hard to see the slowdown showing up in the labor market data (putting appropriate weight on CES vs CPS). No recession yet according to the Sahm rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/recindex_feb24b.png\")
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