NFP employment improve of 311K beat the Bloomberg consensus of 205K. This quantity confirms the continued power within the financial system general, a minimum of in keeping with the important thing indicators adopted by the NBER BCDC plus S&P World (nee IHS Markit) month-to-month GDP.

Determine 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, NFP (darkish blue), Bloomberg consensus of three/9 (blue +), civilian employment (orange), industrial manufacturing (crimson), private revenue excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (inexperienced), manufacturing and commerce gross sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (mild blue), and month-to-month GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Q3 Supply: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA 2022Q4 2nd launch by way of FRED, S&P World/IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (3/1/2023 launch), and writer’s calculations.

Given the talk over the power of the labor market, notably insofar because it pertains to the 2022H1 figures, the next graph highlights the truth that if there was a slowdown in 2022H1 (notably 2022Q2), it’s largely been reversed.

Determine 2: Nonfarm payroll employment from February 2023 CES launch (blue), Bloomberg consensus as of three/9 (crimson sq.), family collection adjusted to NFP idea (crimson), QCEW whole lined employees, seasonally adjusted utilizing log reworked Census X-13 (teal), all in 000’s, s.a. Mild blue shading denotes a hypothesized 2022H1 recession. Supply: BLS, BLS QCEW, and writer’s calculations.

Whereas the employment improve was bigger than anticipated, this was on downwardly revised December and January numbers summing to 55K; in different phrases, by way of the stage of employment, the 311K interprets to 206K improve in comparison with 205K consensus improve.

Right here’s one other image of the evolution of the labor market, from varied views — whole NFP, mixture hours from personal NFP, civilian employment, and personal NFP from ADP.

Determine 3: Nonfarm payroll employment from February 2023 CES launch (blue), mixture hours (inexperienced), Non-public NFP collection from ADP (tan), civilian employment (crimson), all s.a., in logs 2021M11=0. Mild blue shading denotes a hypothesized 2022H1 recession. Supply: BLS and ADP by way of FRED, and writer’s calculations.