FEATURED POST

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.
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December 16, 2025

Money isn’t everything. We found another powerful currency for incentivizing workers. 

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

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.
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December 9, 2025

Small employers have something to tell us

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

For the four weeks ending Nov. 22, 2025, private employers added an average of 4,750 jobs a week. This week’s positive number hints at an upswing in the labor market after four straight weeks of negative pulse estimates. These numbers are preliminary and could change as new data is added.
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November 25, 2025

A silver twist on the gig economy

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

The federal government’s delayed September employment report, released last week, showed that the economy added 119,000 jobs that month, better than economists had predicted. But for self-employed workers, the news wasn’t as good.
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November 18, 2025

Job growth is sluggish, but new hires are on the upswing. How? 

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

Hiring has slowed from earlier in the year, so one would think that new hires—which we define as workers added to an employer payroll in the last three months—would be a shrinking share of the workforce. Instead, they’re on the upswing. What gives?
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November 11, 2025

The NER Pulse

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

For the four weeks ending Oct. 25, 2025, private employers shed an average of 11,250 jobs a week, suggesting that the labor market struggled to produce jobs consistently during the second half of the month. These numbers are preliminary and could change as new data is added.
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October 28, 2025

Meeting the moment: ADP’s new weekly labor-market pulse

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

A lot can happen in a month, especially in an economy as complex as ours. Starting today, ADP will publish a weekly tracker of private-sector U.S. employment. As the economy undergoes long-term structural change driven by AI, demographics, and short-term business cycle fluctuations, our high-frequency NER pulse will provide a near real-time view of job creation and loss.
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October 21, 2025

Creative destruction in the age of AI

by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.

Imagine an economy that, for decades, had no growth. Standards of living that never improved. Wealth and money that remained dormant. In our modern era, the concept of sustained growth is considered commonplace. But in the annals of human experience, economic progress is unusual. The norm has been a lack of sustained growth or acceleration.
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