Non-farm payrolls (NFP) is the monthly change in the number of paid jobs in the United States outside farming, private households, the self-employed and the military. It is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics inside the Employment Situation report, normally on the first Friday of the month at 08:30 New York time, covering the previous month.
What the release actually contains
Traders say "NFP", but the report carries several numbers that are read together, and they come from two separate surveys.
- Headline payrolls — the job change from the establishment survey of employers. It counts jobs, so one person holding two jobs is counted twice.
- Unemployment rate and participation rate — from the household survey of families. It counts people, which is why the two surveys can point in different directions in the same month.
- Average hourly earnings — wage growth, month on month and year on year. This is the part most closely tied to the inflation debate.
- Revisions — every release revises the two previous months.
Revisions matter more than their coverage in the press suggests. A revision can be larger than the gap between the headline figure and the consensus forecast, so a report can print a headline above expectations and still be read as weaker once the back months are cut. The establishment survey is also rebenchmarked once a year against more complete tax-based records.
The full release, the methodology and the schedule are published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is the primary source; everything else is a copy of it.
What happens to execution at the release
This part is mechanical and has nothing to do with a view on direction.
In the seconds around a scheduled release, liquidity providers widen their quotes or step back entirely. Three things follow:
- The spread widens. The distance between bid and ask can be several times its usual size for a short period, so a position that is opened and closed across the release pays more to get in and out — see the lesson on spread in forex.
- Price can gap. The market may print at one level and then at another with nothing traded in between.
- Slippage becomes likely. An order is filled at the best price available when it reaches the market, which may be worse than the price on screen when it was sent. This works in both directions, and it applies to protective orders too: a stop-loss order becomes a market order once triggered, so in a gap it can be filled well below the stop level and the realised loss can be larger than the one planned.
None of this is a reason to trade the release, and none of it can be relied on to work in a particular direction. It is a description of how the order book behaves when a scheduled number lands.
Where to check the date: the next NFP release date and time is listed in the ABF Trade economic calendar.
