Zan-Ozimek asks:

For August 2025, will ADP report a higher monthly change in US total nonfarm private payrolls than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?

Started Aug 08, 2025 05:00PM UTC
Closed Sep 01, 2025 07:01AM UTC

After the BLS reported major revisions to its payroll data for May and June in its July 2025 employment situation report, the government agency's data has faced heavy scrutiny (BLS - Employment Situation July 2025, CNBC, Politico). The payroll processing firm Automatic Data Processing (ADP) releases a closely watched private sector jobs report each month (ADP, Investopedia - ADP). The question will be suspended on 31 August 2025 and the outcome determined using ADP and BLS data as reported by the Federal Reserve Economic Data database (FRED) once data for August 2025 are first reported, expected in September 2025 (FRED [ADP], click "Edit Graph" and change "Units" to "Change, Persons," FRED [BLS], click "Edit Graph" and change "Units" to "Change, Thousands of Persons"). As of the launch of this question, ADP reported a higher monthly change in private payrolls (+104,000) for July 2025 than what BLS reported (+83,000). The question is concerned with the nominally higher number, not the greater absolute value (e.g., +20,000 is higher than -40,000).

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The question closed "Yes" with a closing date of 1 September 2025.

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Possible Answer Correct? Final Crowd Forecast
Yes 64%
No 37%

Crowd Forecast Profile

Participation Level
Number of Forecasters 16
Average for questions in their first 6 months: 137
Number of Forecasts 21
Average for questions in their first 6 months: 369
Accuracy
Participants in this question vs. all forecasters average

Most Accurate

Relative Brier Score

1.
-0.3834
2.
-0.301004
3.
-0.2459
4.
-0.229233
5.
-0.192075

Recent Consensus, Probability Over Time

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