Two employment releases available by date in this March 10, 2017 retrospective describe February, but not the same statistical object. ADP reported an estimated 298,000 increase in U.S. nonfarm private employment on March 8. Statistics Canada’s March 10 Labour Force Survey described Canadian employment as little changed, up 15,000, or 0.1%. The shared month does not make those figures interchangeable. [adp][statcan]

A proposed definitions box would label the first figure a seasonally adjusted U.S. private-payroll estimate, derived from ADP payroll data with Moody’s Analytics. The second would be labeled Canadian survey employment. Canada’s unemployment rate fell to 6.6% as fewer people searched for work. That decline, by itself, therefore cannot be read as a count of additional hires. [adp][statcan]

The methods deserve a line of their own. ADP describes scheduled revisions incorporating revised Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll data and Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages inputs. It is not independent of all government statistics. Statistics Canada cautions that monthly sample estimates fluctuate more than longer trends, with greater variability for smaller areas or industries. [adp][statcan]

The editorial use of this box is simple: check country, population, method and period before comparing headlines. Do not subtract these gains to rank economic performance or add them into a supposed continental hiring total. The reports can inform separate national readings. They cannot supply a common measure merely because both use the word employment, nor establish what happened in a particular workplace. [adp][statcan]

Source documents

  1. ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 298,000 Jobs in Februaryhttps://mediacenter.adp.com/2017-03-08-ADP-National-Employment-Report-Private-Sector-Employment-Increased-by-298-000-Jobs-in-February
  2. Labour Force Survey, February 2017https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170310/dq170310a-eng.htm