Direct Answer
Labor market indicators track employment, unemployment, hiring, layoffs and pay. Most investors start with nonfarm payrolls, the unemployment rate and initial jobless claims. Payrolls count jobs from a survey of employers, the unemployment rate comes from a separate household survey, and claims are administrative counts that arrive weekly.
Labor Market Indicators: Investor Reference
This category covers economic indicators in the Labor Market Indicators area. Each linked indicator page explains the measure's definition, calculation methodology, release schedule and market interpretation in depth.
See the full economic indicators hub for all 15 categories, or the Macro & Market Regimes section for broader context on how these indicators influence market regimes and portfolio positioning.
What do Labor Market Indicators have in common?
These series answer how much work is available, who is getting it, and what it pays. Employer-side measures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics count jobs, hours and pay: nonfarm, private, government and manufacturing payrolls, temporary help employment, average weekly hours, aggregate weekly hours, average hourly earnings, average weekly earnings and real hourly earnings. ADP Employment is a private estimate of payroll employment built from ADP's own payroll records rather than a government survey.
Household-survey measures describe people rather than jobs: the unemployment rate, household employment, the employment-population ratio, labor force participation, prime-age participation and prime-age EPOP, multiple jobholders, involuntary part-time employment, long-term unemployment, and the alternative measures U-1, U-2, U-4, U-5 and the underemployment rate (U-6). They are wider or narrower versions of one question: who counts as unemployed or underutilized.
Flow and early-warning series show movement beneath the headline stocks. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey supplies openings, hires, quits, layoffs, separations and openings per unemployed. Gross job gains and losses show the churn behind net job change. Initial and continuing jobless claims and the insured unemployment rate arrive weekly, and Challenger job cuts record announced layoffs. The Employment Cost Index and its wage and benefit components, published quarterly, show whether compensation is adjusting.
How do you choose among Labor Market Indicators?
- Timeliness: weekly claims arrive first, monthly payrolls and unemployment follow, and JOLTS and quarterly series come later. Pick by how quickly you need a signal against how complete it is.
- Payrolls versus household data: payrolls are the usual gauge of job growth and come from employers. The household survey is the source for the unemployment rate, participation and worker characteristics, and the two can diverge in a month.
- Breadth of slack: the unemployment rate is the narrow official measure (U-3). U-1 to U-6 widen or narrow the definition, and the underemployment rate adds discouraged, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers.
- Labor supply: prime-age participation and prime-age EPOP hold the age mix steady, while the overall participation rate and employment-population ratio are pulled by population aging.
- Pay: average hourly earnings can shift when the mix of jobs changes. The Employment Cost Index holds job mix fixed and includes benefits, and real hourly earnings adjust for consumer prices.
- Demand and turnover: openings per unemployed and quits gauge labor demand and worker bargaining power, while layoffs, claims and Challenger job cuts are where deterioration tends to appear.
Labor Market Indicators at a glance
| Indicator | What it measures | Published by | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADP Employment | private-sector payroll employment based on ADP payroll records | ADP Research | Monthly |
| Aggregate Weekly Hours | the total hours worked per week by private-sector employees in the United States | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Average Hourly Earnings | the average hourly pay of private-sector employees in the United States | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Average Weekly Earnings | the average weekly pay of private-sector employees in the United States | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Average Weekly Hours | the average number of hours worked per week by private-sector employees in the United States | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Challenger Job Cuts | announced U.S. corporate layoffs | Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. | Monthly |
| Continuing Jobless Claims | the number of people in the United States still receiving state unemployment insurance benefits | U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration | Weekly |
| ECI Benefits | changes in the cost of employee benefits for U.S. employers | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Quarterly |
| ECI Wages | changes in wages and salaries paid by private-sector employers in the United States | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Quarterly |
| Employment Cost Index | changes in the total cost of labor, wages and benefits, for U.S. employers | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Quarterly |
| Employment-Population Ratio | the share of the U.S. civilian population aged 16 and over that is employed | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Government Payrolls | the number of people employed by U.S. federal, state and local governments | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Gross Job Gains | the number of jobs added at expanding and opening U.S. establishments | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Quarterly |
| Gross Job Losses | the number of jobs lost at contracting and closing U.S. establishments | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Quarterly |
| Household Employment | the number of employed people in the United States, from the survey of households | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Initial Jobless Claims | the number of people filing for unemployment insurance benefits for the first time in the United States | U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration | Weekly |
| Insured Unemployment Rate | the share of U.S. covered employment that is receiving unemployment insurance benefits | U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration | Weekly |
| Involuntary Part-Time Employment | the number of U.S. workers employed part time because they cannot find full-time work or their hours were cut | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Job Openings | the number of unfilled job openings in the United States | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| JOLTS Hires | the number of hires in the United States in a month | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| JOLTS Layoffs | the number of layoffs and discharges in the United States in a month | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| JOLTS Quits | the number of workers in the United States who quit their jobs in a month | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| JOLTS Separations | the number of workers in the United States who left their jobs in a month, for any reason | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Labor Force Participation | the share of the U.S. civilian population aged 16 and over that is working or looking for work | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Long-Term Unemployment | the number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or longer | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Manufacturing Jobs | the number of payroll jobs in U.S. manufacturing | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Multiple Jobholders | the number of workers holding more than one job | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Nonfarm Payrolls | the number of paid employees on U.S. nonfarm payrolls | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Openings per Unemployed | how many job openings exist for each unemployed worker | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Prime-Age EPOP | the share of the U.S. population aged 25 to 54 that is employed | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Prime-Age Participation | the share of the U.S. population aged 25 to 54 that is working or looking for work | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Private Payrolls | the number of paid employees on U.S. private-sector payrolls | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Real Hourly Earnings | hourly pay for private-sector workers after adjusting for consumer price inflation | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Temporary Help Employment | the number of people employed by U.S. temporary help services firms | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| U-1 | the share of the U.S. labor force that has been unemployed for 15 weeks or more | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| U-2 | the share of the U.S. labor force that lost or finished a job | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| U-4 | the unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a share of the labor force plus discouraged workers | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| U-5 | the unemployed plus all marginally attached workers, as a share of the labor force plus marginally attached workers | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Underemployment Rate | the broadest measure of unemployment and labor underutilization in the United States, known as U-6 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
| Unemployment Rate | the share of the U.S. labor force that is without a job and actively looking for work | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Monthly |
40 indicator pages are listed. Each row comes from the same source file as the page it links, so the publisher and frequency here match that page.
What limits do Labor Market Indicators share?
Payroll estimates are revised in each of the following two months and benchmarked once a year to a near-complete count of employment. Household survey figures are sample estimates with sampling error, and they are affected by seasonal factors and population-control updates. Weekly claims are noisy around holidays and seasonal transitions. JOLTS rests on a smaller sample than the payroll survey and arrives later. ADP and Challenger are private series with their own coverage, not official counts. Strikes, weather and definition changes can distort single months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do payrolls and the unemployment rate sometimes disagree?
They come from different surveys. Payrolls count jobs reported by employers, so a person with two jobs can be counted twice and self-employed workers are excluded. The unemployment rate comes from the household survey, which counts people, including the self-employed. Each has sampling error and its own seasonal factors and revisions, so they can point in different directions in a single month.
What is the difference between U-3 and U-6 unemployment?
U-3 is the official unemployment rate: people without a job who actively looked for work in the past four weeks, as a share of the labor force. U-6, shown here as the underemployment rate, adds discouraged and other marginally attached workers and people working part time for economic reasons. U-1, U-2, U-4 and U-5 are intermediate definitions.
Which labor market indicators tend to move first?
Initial jobless claims, average weekly hours, temporary help employment and job openings tend to turn before payrolls and the unemployment rate. Long-term unemployment and the unemployment rate itself often lag. These are tendencies, not rules, and the order varies from one cycle to the next.
How often are payroll numbers revised?
The first estimate for a month is revised in the next two monthly reports as more employer responses arrive, and again once a year when the series is benchmarked to a broader count of employment. Revisions can change the picture of a trend, so compare a first print with later vintages.
What do JOLTS quits and openings show?
Job openings measure unfilled demand for workers, and openings per unemployed compares that demand with the pool of job seekers. Quits count workers who left voluntarily, which tends to rise when workers are confident of finding another job. Layoffs show employer-initiated separations. Together they describe turnover and bargaining power, not just net job growth.