Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Data from large payroll processing companies are a potential source of regional job growth estimates that are timelier than official government statistics. Monthly private sector employment data from ADP, LLC is available for 29 U.S. states and Washington DC about 10 days prior to official employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Using a simple model with real-time data, lags of job growth and the coincident month ADP estimates, we find that for all 30 regions the information in the ADP is statistically significant in nowcasting the most recent month of job growth. Our results suggest that the ADP data are an important source of information for analysts conducting regional current analysis.

Keywords

Nowcasting real-time data payroll processing data regional dataJEL classification: C13 C53 C82

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Berger

Phillips

. Reassessing Texas Employment Growth. Southwest Economy. 1993 Jul; 1-3.

Phillips

Wang

. Seasonal Adjustment of Hybrid Time Series: An Application to U.S. Regional Jobs Data, Journal of Economic and Social Measurement. 2016 Jun 21; 41(2): 191-202.

Einav

Levin

. The data revolution and economic analysis. National Bureau of Economic Research. 2013 May 9.

Gregory

Zhu

. Testing the value of lead information in forecasting monthly changes in employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Applied Financial Economics. 2014 Apr 3; 24(7): 505-14.

Goldenberg

Moore

Rosen

. Commercial Payroll Software and the Quality of Employment Data. In 1994 Joint Statistical Meetings, Toronto, Ontario, 1994 Aug: 14-19.

Deloitte. The Payroll Operations Survey summary of results [Internet]. 2014 [cited 2016 Dec 20]. Available from: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/human-capital/articles/2014-payroll-operations-survey-results.html.

Groen

. Sources of error in survey and administrative data: The importance of reporting procedures. Journal of Official Statistics. 2012 Jun 1; 28(2): 173-98.

Automatic Data Processing. Enhanced ADP National Employment Report: New Methodology – Executive Summary [Internet]. 2016 [cited 2016 Dec 20]. Available from: http://adpemploymentreport.com/common-legacy/docs/ADP-NER-Methodology-Exec-Summary.pdf.

Phillips

Slijk

. ADP payroll processing data can provide early look at Texas job growth. Southwest Economy. 2015; 2: 10-3.

10.

Koenig

Dolmas

Piger

. The use and abuse of real-time data in economic forecasting. Review of Economics and Statistics. 2003 Aug; 85(3): 618-28.

11.

Stark

Croushore

. Forecasting with a real-time data set for macroeconomists. Journal of Macroeconomics. 2002 Dec 31; 24(4): 507-31.

12.

Theil

. Economic forecasts and policy. 1st ed. Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub. Co.; 1958.

Nowcasting regional job growth using payroll processing company data

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References