– ADP “Cancels” 365,000 Private Jobs Created In 2012 (ZeroHedge, Oct 31, 2012):
Frequent readers know that in addition of any “data” and “numbers” out of Larry Yun’s National Association of Realtors, which we openly boycott as these are consistently manipulated (recall the massive historical December 2011 revision), slanted and conflicted, the second dataset which we have mocked with a passion is anything coming out of the ADP, which every month releases its “Private Jobs” number a day before the official BLS Non-farm Payroll data. Today, our mockeries have been proven 100% spot on. The reason? A week ago, ADP announced that going forward it would coordinate with Moody’s (yes, that Moody’s), and especially its chief economist, SecTres hopeful (InTrade odds of actually attain that post: 0.00) Mark Zandi, to fudge adjust its data going forward. The data revision was supposed to be publicly disclosed tomorrow when the official October ADP number was released. Well, just like today’s Chicago PMI, and so many other data points recently, this too was released early. What the early release allowed us to promptly calculate is that using the historically revised numbers, and comparing those based on the original methodology, in 2012 alone, the US would have lost a whopping… 365,000 private jobs! Putting thus number in context, according to the revised methodology, the US has generated only 1.172MM jobs in 2012 through September, or in other words, a statistical “fix” magically eliminated over 30% of what the market had previously expected were job gains, a number which the incumbent president has certain taken advantage of on more than one occasions while campaigning.The chart below shows the old data series (which can still be found at the St. Louis Fed), and the new series, which can be extracted from the advance leaked press release. The cumulative difference is the black line. It needs no explanation.
What is also of note, is that had ADP used its revised methodology, it would have missed 5 out of the past 7 Wall Street consensus estimates.
As an added bonus, whereas according to the previous release, which we were lucky enough to tag here, the US generated +4,000 manufacturing jobs in September, the new release indicates that in the same month, the US actually lost -17,400 manufacturing jobs. Perhaps it is time to rerun the Ohio presidential speeches one more time…
And that is how “precise” supposedly the far more accurate ADP (at least in comparison to the NFP’s wild X-12-ARIMA extrapolated goalseeked data) was historically.
Basically the “job creation” in America is and has always been a function of an excel spreadsheet, and seasonal fudge factors, as ADP just definitively confirmed. As such, we look forward to the next “revision” which will eliminate a further 1.1 million private jobs in 2012, showing an economy that has added virtually no jobs in the current year. Luckily, what ADP also did, was professional suicide, as after this “recasting”, absolutely nobody, except for the BLS of course which will now be forced to do a comparable datarevision, will take the New Jersey based company, and especially its Moody’s Joint Venture, seriously.
To summarize: “If you think America created jobs, it didn’t. ADP made that happen.”
Look forward to ADP re-revising its numbers tomorrow, to make them once again fit in with the general narrative that things in America are, contrary to every indication, getting better.