ADP said 90,000 jobs and the BLS said 29,000. How do you reconcile two US jobs numbers two days apart?

ADP's National Employment Report on 30 September showed private-sector employment up 90,000 in September, with August revised from 38,000 to 36,000. Two days later, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported payrolls up 29,000, with August revised to +133,000 and July to a loss of 10,000 (ADP report, BLS report).

The two measures disagreed in opposite directions: ADP was stronger than the BLS in September (90,000 against 29,000) but far weaker in August (36,000 against 133,000). ADP uses anonymised weekly payroll records from more than 26 million private-sector employees. The BLS surveys employers and households. Different samples and methods mean the two often diverge, which is why traders do not treat ADP as a reliable preview.

Weekly claims for the week ending 26 September were 197,000, close to their recent lows (report), so layoffs are low even though hiring is soft. The next ADP report is on 4 November, two days before the BLS report on 6 November.

We would like to know how you handle conflicting data:

• Do you use ADP at all, as a preview, as a second opinion, or not?
• When ADP and the BLS disagree, which do you trust, and why?
• Do you look at claims, revisions, pay growth or something else to break the tie?
• Has an ADP release ever moved you into a trade that the BLS figure then reversed?

How to trade non-farm payrolls covers the monthly report.

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