How ADP employment data compares with official BLS jobs reports

The ongoing shutdown of major pieces of the federal government has meant missed paychecks for federal workers, no new loans from the Small Business Administration, no giant panda cam from the National Zoo – and no jobs data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS.

Federal economic data historically has been considered the gold standard, and the BLS’s monthly report on national employment and unemployment is a key resource for policymakers, economists, investors and others. It helps businesses decide whether to invest or pull back, the Federal Reserve decide to raise or lower interest rates, and much more.

Without BLS’s reports, many economy watchers turn to other indicators to get a sense of the nation’s labor markets. One alternative is the national employment report from Automatic Data Processing Inc., or ADP.

ADP is one of the nation’s largest human resources technology companies. Its business includes processing payrolls for more than 500,000 U.S. employers covering some 26 million workers. That’s roughly a fifth of the country’s private sector workforce.

ADP’s data is on a large enough scale that, until recently, the company provided some of it to the Federal Reserve for a more immediate sense of economic conditions. Using that data trove, ADP produces its employment report in collaboration with Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab.

How do BLS and ADP employment figures compare?

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BLS and ADP estimates on private sector employment are quite closely aligned most years

Private sector employment in the U.S., seasonally adjusted, in thousands

Note: Seasonal adjustment prevents data misinterpretation by adjusting for predictable events, such as holidays or seasonal changes in employment numbers.
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Current Employment Statistics” and Automatic Data Processing’s “National Employment Report.”

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

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BLS and ADP estimates on private sector employment are quite closely aligned most years

Private sector employment in the U.S., seasonally adjusted, in thousands

Date	ADP	BLS
1/2010	106,884	107,311
2/2010	106,401	107,229
3/2010	105,935	107,347
4/2010	106,029	107,551
5/2010	106,189	107,647
6/2010	106,258	107,769
7/2010	106,410	107,846
8/2010	106,509	107,996
9/2010	106,685	108,095
10/2010	106,814	108,324
11/2010	106,944	108,462
12/2010	107,047	108,564
1/2011	107,306	108,579
2/2011	107,582	108,841
3/2011	107,842	109,090
4/2011	108,162	109,413
5/2011	108,326	109,575
6/2011	108,516	109,767
7/2011	108,736	109,944
8/2011	108,947	110,108
9/2011	109,224	110,361
10/2011	109,351	110,555
11/2011	109,539	110,719
12/2011	109,665	110,934
1/2012	109,982	111,299
2/2012	110,298	111,561
3/2012	110,533	111,805
4/2012	110,768	111,894
5/2012	110,874	112,022
6/2012	111,085	112,082
7/2012	111,101	112,244
8/2012	111,223	112,422
9/2012	111,377	112,592
10/2012	111,681	112,765
11/2012	111,979	112,942
12/2012	111,848	113,187
1/2013	112,307	113,388
2/2013	112,487	113,664
3/2013	112,653	113,819
4/2013	112,696	114,004
5/2013	112,884	114,231
6/2013	112,937	114,439
7/2013	113,112	114,576
8/2013	113,361	114,815
9/2013	113,535	114,986
10/2013	113,625	115,211
11/2013	113,847	115,473
12/2013	114,427	115,553
1/2014	114,499	115,747
2/2014	114,719	115,887
3/2014	114,908	116,152
4/2014	115,181	116,444
5/2014	115,450	116,680
6/2014	115,736	116,954
7/2014	115,982	117,172
8/2014	116,274	117,414
9/2014	116,419	117,666
10/2014	116,721	117,880
11/2014	116,952	118,158
12/2014	117,219	118,417
1/2015	117,345	118,608
2/2015	117,471	118,849
3/2015	117,609	118,953
4/2015	117,873	119,191
5/2015	118,183	119,526
6/2015	118,328	119,694
7/2015	118,573	119,941
8/2015	118,716	120,065
9/2015	119,022	120,235
10/2015	119,251	120,523
11/2015	119,353	120,727
12/2015	119,499	120,980
1/2016	119,718	121,096
2/2016	119,968	121,269
3/2016	120,126	121,484
4/2016	120,372	121,671
5/2016	120,421	121,701
6/2016	120,685	121,966
7/2016	120,896	122,231
8/2016	121,019	122,378
9/2016	121,199	122,644
10/2016	121,356	122,771
11/2016	121,571	122,906
12/2016	121,677	123,104
1/2017	121,905	123,312
2/2017	121,991	123,522
3/2017	122,097	123,640
4/2017	122,244	123,839
5/2017	122,485	124,033
6/2017	122,674	124,223
7/2017	122,839	124,398
8/2017	123,004	124,609
9/2017	123,250	124,674
10/2017	123,359	124,789
11/2017	123,569	124,994
12/2017	123,783	125,139
1/2018	124,027	125,286
2/2018	124,253	125,635
3/2018	124,444	125,853
4/2018	124,526	125,978
5/2018	124,636	126,291
6/2018	124,843	126,477
7/2018	125,014	126,584
8/2018	125,258	126,811
9/2018	125,336	126,884
10/2018	125,591	127,047
11/2018	125,786	127,144
12/2018	125,808	127,298
1/2019	126,217	127,551
2/2019	126,376	127,540
3/2019	126,340	127,726
4/2019	126,393	127,974
5/2019	126,505	128,059
6/2019	126,520	128,235
7/2019	126,555	128,364
8/2019	126,558	128,546
9/2019	126,367	128,712
10/2019	126,443	128,790
11/2019	126,463	128,959
12/2019	126,910	129,069
1/2020	126,626	129,250
2/2020	126,733	129,435
3/2020	126,631	128,068
4/2020	120,537	108,515
5/2020	117,310	111,647
6/2020	117,202	116,259
7/2020	117,184	117,741
8/2020	117,294	118,819
9/2020	118,220	119,841
10/2020	118,860	120,656
11/2020	119,428	121,048
12/2020	120,141	120,870
1/2021	120,591	121,134
2/2021	120,782	121,658
3/2021	121,185	122,390
4/2021	121,239	122,702
5/2021	121,363	123,122
6/2021	121,715	123,824
7/2021	122,729	124,704
8/2021	123,976	125,147
9/2021	124,871	125,632
10/2021	125,666	126,526
11/2021	126,264	127,162
12/2021	126,962	127,707
1/2022	127,179	127,950
2/2022	127,710	128,834
3/2022	127,987	129,304
4/2022	128,311	129,572
5/2022	128,556	129,789
6/2022	129,051	130,229
7/2022	129,556	130,767
8/2022	129,879	131,017
9/2022	130,323	131,233
10/2022	130,541	131,604
11/2022	130,762	131,836
12/2022	130,884	131,963
1/2023	131,131	132,288
2/2023	131,288	132,538
3/2023	131,235	132,586
4/2023	131,367	132,753
5/2023	131,419	132,919
6/2023	131,565	133,089
7/2023	131,703	133,199
8/2023	131,822	133,307
9/2023	131,917	133,396
10/2023	132,047	133,513
11/2023	132,147	133,610
12/2023	132,242	133,823
1/2024	132,371	133,896
2/2024	132,462	134,047
3/2024	132,544	134,216
4/2024	132,657	134,345
5/2024	132,821	134,505
6/2024	132,957	134,571
7/2024	132,999	134,611
8/2024	133,179	134,644
9/2024	133,373	134,852
10/2024	133,594	134,851
11/2024	133,798	135,095
12/2024	133,974	135,382
1/2025	134,160	135,461
2/2025	134,244	135,568
3/2025	134,391	135,682
4/2025	134,451	135,815
5/2025	134,480	135,884
6/2025	134,457	135,857
7/2025	134,561	135,934
8/2025	134,558	135,972

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Note: Seasonal adjustment prevents data misinterpretation by adjusting for predictable events, such as holidays or seasonal changes in employment numbers.
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Current Employment Statistics” and Automatic Data Processing’s “National Employment Report.”

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

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We calculated a statistic called the coefficient of determination, also known as R², to gauge how similar the BLS and ADP private sector data series are. R² ranges from zero to one; the higher the value, the closer the two series are. (For a more detailed explanation, read the “How we did this” section.)

Statistics on private sector jobs from ADP and BLS are highly correlated. Since the start of ADP’s series in 2010, the R² for the two national private sector employment reports is 0.9817 (when adjusted to account for seasonal variations) and 0.9771 (not seasonally adjusted).

Beyond those headline numbers, both ADP and BLS break down their employment data into smaller categories. We compared three subseries that both entities use – workforce size, region and industry – and found most of them were strongly correlated as well.

From the smallest businesses (one to 19 employees) to the largest (500 or more employees), the R² scores for workforce size are all well above 0.98 (not seasonally adjusted). All nine Census regions have scores above 0.87 (in both their seasonally adjusted and unadjusted versions), and five are above 0.97.

Seven of the 10 industry groups have R² scores above 0.9 (seasonally adjusted and unadjusted). The leisure and hospitality industry is close behind, at above 0.8 for unadjusted and adjusted.

Two industries – mining/logging/natural resources and “other services” – are considerably less correlated, likely because ADP and BLS define them differently.

There are other key differences in how the two entities produce their reports. The BLS jobs report comes from two surveys: one of 60,000 households (which generates the unemployment rate) and the other of 121,000 business establishments (which generates the payroll employment figures). ADP bases its report on anonymized, aggregated payroll data from its clients. It measures job growth or shrinkage by comparing employers’ payrolls in a given pay period with those from the previous pay period.

Those differences mean the ADP data can’t perfectly substitute the BLS data. For one thing, the ADP data isn’t representative of the entire economy; the company’s client base tilts more toward mid-sized businesses than the BLS employer survey does. The ADP data also excludes government workers entirely and doesn’t allow as detailed of an analysis as the BLS datasets. (If you want to know how many leisure and hospitality jobs there are in Athens, Georgia, the BLS is where you want to go.)

But the two data series share some important similarities. Both use the week that includes the 12th of each month as their monthly reference point (though ADP releases new data weekly). And both use the BLS’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, or QCEW, to benchmark and revise their monthly estimates. The QCEW comes from employers’ unemployment tax filings and covers more than 95% of all U.S. jobs. But it has a time lag of several months and was last published in September (covering the first quarter of 2025).

In general, the BLS tends to estimate that there are somewhat more private sector payroll jobs than ADP. And in any given month, the two indicators may point in different directions or show greater or lesser month-over-month changes. (This was particularly true in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the BLS jobs figure fell more precipitously than ADP’s.)

Employment figures are by no means the only government economic data affected by the shutdown. The BLS produces monthly readings on consumer prices, job openings and layoffs, and other closely watched economic reports, all of which have been disrupted. (The bureau did release its inflation report for September, but only after a nine-day delay.)

Other important federal agencies that produce economic data, such as the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau, aren’t generating or releasing any new data either. Even after the government fully reopens, data releases likely will take some time to get back on schedule.