Despite “The People’s Vote”, ADP Private Payrolls ‘Prove’ Employment Situation Is Great

Isn’t it odd that ‘they threw the bums out’ last night and yet, economic confidence is high, stocks are high, and now, according to ADP, private payrolls are great too? Something doesn’t add up. ADP printed 230k against expectations of 220k, modestly up from a revised 225k in September. Small and Medium-sized businesses added jobs while the largest firms (over 1000 people) slashed jobs (which is great for the stock, right?).

The breakdown:

Mark Zandi may not have gotten the memo, but his eagerness to please the Obama administration will no longer bear any fruit. Also, the “folks” no longer believe what he says:

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “The job market is steadily picking up pace. Job growth is strong and broad-based across industries and company sizes. At this pace of job growth unemployment and underemployment is quickly declining. The job market will soon be tight enough to support a meaningful acceleration in wage growth.”

Uhm, no. More from the report:

“Employment continues to trend upward as we begin the last quarter of 2014, driven mostly by small to mid-sized companies,” said Carlos Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of ADP. “October’s job growth is the highest since June and the second highest gain of 2014.”

People almost believe this. Almost.

Payrolls for businesses with 49 or fewer employees increased by 102,000 jobs in October, up from 93,000 in September. Job growth was up dramatically over the month for medium-sized firms. Employment among companies with 50-499 employees rose by 122,000, well over twice September’s increase of 47,000. Employment at large companies – those with 500 or more employees – saw a big drop from 85,000 the previous month to only 5,000 jobs added in October. Companies with 500-999 employees added 14,000 jobs, up from September’s 8,000. However, this increase was offset by the loss of 8,000 jobs by companies with over 1,000 employees.

Thank you M&A.

Some more meaningless, goalseeked, seasonally-adjusted charts:

Change in Nonfarm Private Employment