Employment confusion in the absence of non-farm payroll data: Strong rebound in ADP data, JP Morgan warns of hidden worries in continued unemployment claims.

On the first Friday of November 2025, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics was absent from the Non-Farm Payrolls report again due to a government shutdown. Without an official employment report, JP Morgan compiled signals from other employment data, and overall, there has been little change since September. As of August, the three-month average increase in private sector employment was 29,000, with an unemployment rate of 4.32%. JP Morgan believes that the current situation is still close to this level, excluding the short-term increase in the unemployment rate due to government employees being on temporary leave. The most prominent data is the estimation of private sector employment by ADP. In October, ADP employment rebounded by adding 42,000 jobs, compared to a decrease of 29,000 jobs in September and a decrease of 3,000 jobs in August. Although ADP may have significant deviations in predicting monthly changes in non-farm employment, its large sample size and cumulative employment growth this year generally match non-farm data. In the future, ADP will release a four-week average of employment changes every Tuesday morning in Eastern Time. JP Morgan stated that considering the volatility of employment data, the reading in October can also be seen as "stable." However, since three out of the previous four months were negative, any positive growth would contradict the statement that the "job market is weakening." Basic data from state government levels show that the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits fluctuates around a stable trend, not much different from the levels in the same period in 2023. Especially considering that these numbers may have been slightly and temporarily inflated due to the government shutdown, they do not appear to be too bad. The bank pointed out that the number of continuing claims for unemployment benefits is more concerning. Although the recent slight increase in the past few weeks may be residual seasonal factors, the year-over-year growth rate has not slowed down, typically remaining above 4%, indicating that the unemployment rate is gradually rising.