Non-Farm Payroll
Categories: Econ
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the monthly Employment Situation Report, which includes the non-farm payroll stat.
Non-farm payroll jobs are jobs that don't include farm workers, self-employed people, properieters, nonprofit org jobs, and military/FBI/CIA jobs. So…all the other jobs, which is a lot of jobs. Most jobs, in fact (like, 80% contribution towards GDP).
Non-farm payroll, which is looked at month-to-month for changes, is an important economic indicator. It basically reflects the supply of jobs and the state of the labor market. Why non-farm? Because farm work kind of lives on its own orbit outside of the normal economic cycle booms and busts of white and blue collar jobs, so statisticians take it out of the totals when they're trying to figure out whether or not the canary is going to die in the economic mine shaft.
The non-farm payroll is associated with similarly important statistics, like the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate. These broad-sweep economic indicators give a big picture view on the health of the U.S. labor market. Work hard, play hard.