The slight decline in NFP was surprising; however, proxy indicators point to continued growth through at least May. This characteristic also applies to private nonfarm payrolls data.
figure 1: CES nonfarm payrolls (blue), CPS household series adjusted for NFP concept (tan), QCEW coverage totals, seasonally adjusted using X-13 (green), all in 000s, sa source: BLS via FRED, BLS, BSL-QCEW, philadelphia fed.
figure 2: Private NFP from BLS CES (tan), private NFP from ADP (red), seasonally adjusted summary of private QCEW using X13 (green), and total weekly hours worked (blue), all in logarithmic form, 2021 November of the year = 0. Sources: BLS, ADP (via FRED), BLS-QCEWand the authors’ calculations.
While nominal wages continued to rise in June, real wages, calculated from the Cleveland Fed’s June forecast, were fairly flat. Having said that, real wages have been rising for total employment since June 2022. Wages for leisure and hospitality production and nonmanagement workers have risen 7.2% since the February 2020 peak as defined by the NBER.
image 3: Average hourly earnings for private gross nonfarm (blue, left log scale) and leisure and hospitality services (tan, right log scale), both in 2022 dollars (full CPI deflation). The June Watch uses the Cleveland Fed’s instant CPI forecast through July 9, 2023. Recession peak-to-trough dates as defined by NBER are grayed out. Source: BLS via FRED, cleveland fedNBER, and author’s calculations.
Gross private hourly earnings were 2.1 percent above peak NBER levels.
