What Small Employers Are Telling Us About the Labor Market
ADP’s March payroll data shows turnover among firms with fewer than 50 employees dropped to 3.9%, the lowest level in nine years. The broader private‑sector turnover rate has hovered around 4.7% for the past three years, indicating relative stability. Small employers also accounted for nearly all private‑sector job gains in February and March, underscoring their role in recent hiring momentum. The NER Pulse estimates private employers added roughly 39,250 jobs per week at the end of March, marking a fourth consecutive week of hiring improvement.
Private Canaries
A new University of Chicago paper shows that private‑sector data—ADP payroll figures, Vanguard income and hiring metrics, and JPMorgan Chase checking‑account transactions—can reliably forecast the first and third releases of the BLS non‑farm payrolls and core CPI. The study argues that...