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Monthly Nonfarm Payroll Employment Forecasts

As noted here, real GDP did not decline until two quarters after the start of the recession which the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee determined began in December 2007. Another key business cycle indicator watched by the BCD as it dates business cycle turning points, employment, started to decline right from the start of this recession, in January 2008. It is often said that employment is a lagging indicator (see, e.g., here and here), and the graph below shows that, for several post-World War II recessions, employment did not start to grow until after the business cycle trough was reached. But as noted above, the behavior of employment at the start of the late-2000s recession suggests a coincident indicator property of this time series.

Measured on a monthly basis, data on nonfarm payroll employment are prepared by the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor through its established (as opposed to household) survey. This list of Employment Situation FAQs notes that the establishment survey: (1) has a smaller margin error than the household survey (a month-to-month change of 107,000 is the threshold for a statistically significant change in the establishment survey at the 10% significance level, while it is 400,000 in the household survey); but (2) has a less comprehensive scope than the household survey. As explained in this CES Employment Situation Summary, the initial employment data are revised over time as new survey information is obtained and seasonal factors are recomputed. Starting with April 2009, I will provide 1-month-ahead forecasts of this important business cycle measure. Some details on how the forecasts were produced appear here.

1-Step-Ahead Forecasts for Change in (Seasonally Adjusted) Monthly Nonfarm Payroll Employment:

[Change from Previous Month]

Month	Release Date of Initial Data	Forecast	Initial Data	1-Month Revised Data	2-Month Revised Data	Benchmark Annual Revision
May 2010	June 4, 2010	254,000	431,000^15
April 2010	May 7, 2010	159,000	290,000^14
March 2010	April 2, 2010	78,000^12	162,000^13	230,000
February 2010	March 5, 2010	-38,000	-36,000^11	-14,000	39,000
January 2010	February 5, 2010	-36,000	-20,000^10	-26,000	14,000
December 2009	January 8, 2010	-32,000	-85,000^9	-150,000	-109,000
November 2009	December 4, 2009	-131,000	-11,000^8	4,000	64,000	64,000
October 2009	November 6, 2009	-139,000	-190,000^7	-111,000	-127,000	-224,000
September 2009	October 2, 2009	-177,000	-263,000^6	-219,000	-139,000	-225,000
August 2009	September 4, 2009	-277,000	-216,000^5	-201,000	-154,000	-211,000
July 2009	August 7, 2009	-350,000	-247,000^4	-276,000	-304,000	-344,000
June 2009	July 2, 2009	-388,000	-467,000^3	-443,000	-463,000	-504,000
May 2009	June 5, 2009	-541,000	-345,000^2	-322,000	-303,000	-347,000
April 2009	May 8, 2009	-634,000	-539,000^1	-504,000	-519,000	-582,000
March 2009	April 3, 2009	--	-663,000	-699,000	-652,000	-753,000

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Last updated: June 23, 2010. Link to: BCI Forecast Page