FEATURED POST
February 24, 2026
What happened to labor market dynamism?
In economics, markets are defined by their price and quantity. Over the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about the labor market, specifically its quantity of jobs and the price of those jobs as defined by pay. Looking at these elements together, two things become clear
Read more
Subscribe to Data Lab
Stay up-to-date on the latest reports and trends.
Stay up to date with Data Lab
Please complete all fields.
Filter by:
February 17, 2026
Pay trends to watch in 2026
by Nela Richardson, Ph.D. • Liv Wang
Last week, I presented five noteworthy facts about the National Employment Report. This week, let’s turn to the subject of wages and ADP’s Pay Insights data, which tracks the year-over-year pay change for individual workers each month. Through the lens of more than 26 million monthly private sector paychecks, we capture five key wage indicators shaping the labor market.
Read more
February 10, 2026
Five things to know about the January ADP employment report
by Nela Richardson, Ph.D. • Tim Decker
Last week we published the first ADP National Employment Report for 2026. This January release is special because it captures our annual benchmarking, a process that transforms ADP’s expansive payroll data into a nationally representative gauge of private-sector employment.
Read more
January 27, 2026
Thinking small
It was an eventful week at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland. And behind the global headlines, I witnessed a part of the economy that often goes overlooked at these big events: small business
Read more
January 20, 2026
AI and the great job unbundling
Greetings from the annual World Economic Forum. I’m in Davos, Switzerland, where business leaders and policymakers are sharing ideas about improving global cooperation and prosperity.
Read more
January 13, 2026
The job market might be tighter than you think
Here’s what the data said about the labor market in 2025: Hiring slowed. Layoffs, as proxied by initial jobless claims, remained near historic lows. And workers were in no big rush to quit their jobs. Taken together, these numbers might suggest a softening labor market, with fewer jobs and less competition for workers. But hiring and employment churn are only part of the equation. Wages are another. And pay growth was robust in 2025.
Read more
December 23, 2025
The NER Pulse
For the four weeks ending Dec. 6, 2025, private employers added an average of 11,500 jobs a week, slowing from an upwardly revised 17,500 the prior week. While job growth slowed, hiring remained in positive territory for a third week. These numbers are preliminary and could change as new data is added.
Read more
December 16, 2025
Money isn’t everything. We found another powerful currency for incentivizing workers.
One classic conundrum of economics is the principal-agent problem. Principals want a task done but lack the know-how, time, or energy to do it themselves. Agents are capable of doing the work, in theory, but they might not do it exactly the way the principal wants.
Read more
