their jobs would be counted as lost for the
month, even though they were still employed.
That would shrink the government’s job count
for January.
The Labor Department uses a different method
to calculate the monthly unemployment rate.
With this method, even workers who were
home sick during last month would be counted
as employed if they have a job to return to.
The differences in the ways the numbers are
calculated account for why even economists
who expect a large job loss for January also
expect the unemployment rate to stay at 3.9%
or perhaps even decline slightly.
Worries about the January employment
picture intensified Wednesday after the payroll
provider ADP issued its own monthly jobs
data, which, unlike the government’s official
report, includes only private employers. ADP’s
report calculated that companies cut 301,000
jobs in January — the worst monthly loss since
the depths of the pandemic recession in April
- ADP’s data frequently diverges from the
government’s official job count on a month-
to-month basis, although it aims to track the
federal data over time.
Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist,
suggested that the job cuts were a direct
consequence of omicron. On a category basis,
the steepest losses in ADP’s survey were at
restaurants, bars, hotels and other public-
facing establishments, which likely laid off
some workers temporarily in response to a
decline in customers. Richardson noted that in
early January, she herself couldn’t schedule an
appointment with a veterinarian or visit a state