Total nonfarm payroll employment, United States

Total nonfarm payroll employment is the number of jobs on US business and government payrolls, excluding farm workers, private household employees and the self-employed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates it from its monthly survey of employers, the Current Employment Statistics program, and publishes it in the Employment Situation report, usually on the first Friday of the following month. The series here is seasonally adjusted and stored in persons.

The monthly change in payrolls is the most closely watched US economic figure. It moves Treasury yields and the dollar on the morning of release, and the Federal Reserve reads it as a direct measure of labor demand. The number of new jobs needed each month to keep unemployment steady is not fixed: it depends on population growth and immigration, and estimates of it have changed considerably over the past decade.

Revisions are the main pitfall. Each month's estimate is revised in each of the next two reports as more employers respond, and once a year the whole series is benchmarked to unemployment insurance tax records, which can shift the level by hundreds of thousands of jobs. Strikes and severe weather also affect the count, because workers who are not paid during the survey week are not counted.

The total nonfarm payroll employment is at its highest since the series starts in January 2006. Within ten years, the total nonfarm payroll employment beats 100% of readings.

Total nonfarm payroll employment, seasonally adjusted (published in thousands; stored as persons).

BLS publishes the total nonfarm payroll employment monthly in Employment Situation (CES), in persons and is seasonally adjusted. Code: CES0000000001. Method for the total nonfarm payroll employment.