Measuring Payroll Employment: A Note on the Current Employment Statistics

The analysis and conclusions set forth are those of the author and do not indicate concurrence by other members of the research staff or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. This material was initially prepared for the NBER Advancing Economic Measurement, Fall 2025 conference of November 13, 2025. I thank Tomaz Cajner, Christopher Kurz, Norman Morin, and John Stevens for comments on an earlier draft. Without implication, this paper draws heavily on joint work and discussions—over many years—with Tomaz Cajner, Leland Crane, Adrian Hamins-Puertolas, and Christopher Kurz. In addition, I thank Katharine Abraham, John Coglianese, John Haltiwanger, Chris Nekarda, John Stewart, and David Wilcox for helpful recent or previous conversations. I thank Adrian Hamins-Puertolas and Joshua Hu for generous technical guidance and data provision. I thank staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau for fielding many questions with speed and clarity. Aidan Owens and Mason Thieu provided excellent research assistance. The many acknowledgments above notwithstanding, any errors in empirical exercises, methodological explanations, or judgment are my own. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.