Sorry ADP, Not Everyone Believes the Economy Created 297,000 Jobs

[somone]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40926288

Sorry ADP, Not Everyone Believes the Economy Created 297,000 Jobs
By Jeff Cox

That big positive surprise this morning from the ADP jobs report was nice while it lasted — which was all of about 30 seconds by market standards. Unfortunately, a number of traders and economists aren't willing to take seriously the report that ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors put out suggesting the economy created 297,000 jobs over the past month. But don’t expect many major revisions for Friday’s Labor Department report, expected to show nonfarm job increases of 140,000 jobs and an unchanged unemployment rate of 9.7 percent.

“ADP has had some spectacular misses and I’m a little bit hesitant at this point to fully buy into the data,” said Joe LaVorgna, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank in New York. “We think we’ll eventually get there, but this is one of those things where seeing is believing.” But the main reasons he had the number lower in the first place was because he thinks the government has been too conservative when it releases the initial number, and the inclement weather also could cause seasonal distortions to the downside that will be amended in subsequent reports...

Economists generally distrust the ADP numbers because the methodology is different than what Labor uses when compiling its reports. The firm’s numbers almost never match the government totals. “To think that we got 300,000 jobs will be the surprise. It will be no surprise if once more ADP got it wrong,” said Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein.

Zach Pandl at Nomura Securities International broke it down further: He pointed out that ADP’s three greatest distortions all happened from December payrolls. That’s because companies will, for tax purposes, keep employees listed on payrolls even if they’re not being paid. The employees are usually purged in December, but ADP has “had had problems seasonally adjusting these December figures,” Pandl said in a note to clients...

[rfranklin]

1. Somebody sat on the keyboard by mistake...

Remember the guy who sold 10 billion Euros while he was chatting up some hot chick?

I suspect somthing similar here.

[DrDan]

2. could these be seasonal hires? part-time holiday workers?

if so, I could believe that number. Of course, in January, they will all be lost.

[Zoeisright]

3. Belief isn't equal to facts.

That's one of the reasons this country is in such trouble: people think that belief is the same thing as cold hard numbers or observable and measurable facts. IT'S NOT.