Two jobs reports, two stories: why the definition behind a number matters

Two reports came out two days apart. One said professional and business services lost 27,000 jobs in October. The other said the same sector gained 70,000. If you were hoping for a clean answer to "how is hiring going?", you may have wanted to lie down for a minute.

Here is what each one said, why they can both be true and what a small business owner can take from it. I am an operations person, not an economist, so this is a reading and not a forecast.

What ADP reported on November 4

ADP, the payroll company, published its October private-payroll estimate on November 4, 2026. As reported by Fox Business and IBTimes, private employers added 86,000 jobs. The sector figures reported in both stories include gains in trade, transportation and utilities (+39,000), education and health services (+28,000) and leisure and hospitality (+19,000), and a loss in professional and business services (-27,000). Fox Business also reported the breakdown by company size: 28,000 for firms with fewer than 50 employees, 33,000 for firms with 50 to 499 employees and 24,000 for firms with 500 or more. ADP's chief economist, Nela Richardson, was quoted saying that employers of all sizes were hiring last month. The stories differ on some details, such as the market's expectation and the prior month's figure, so I have left those out. Read the original reports for the full picture.

What the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on November 6

The BLS published "The Employment Situation" for October 2026 on Friday, November 6. Its headline: total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 165,000, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.1 percent. Employment increased in professional and business services, in health care and in transportation and warehousing. The release says professional and business services rose by 70,000, well above the prior 12-month average monthly gain of 15,000. Average hourly earnings for private nonfarm employees rose 14 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $38.00, and were up 3.1 percent over the past 12 months.

Why two numbers can both be right

The same sector, two stories: -27,000 in one report and +70,000 in the other. It is tempting to ask who made a mistake. The more useful question is: what exactly is each number counting?

• The scope is different. ADP's report is about private-sector employment. The BLS headline is total nonfarm payroll employment, which includes government. The two headlines are not the same measure.
• The source is different. The BLS says its employment figures come from an establishment survey, a monthly survey of employers. ADP's estimate is its own, built by a payroll company. Different sources and methods can produce different results for the same month.
• The sector classifications and the reference periods can differ too. I have not read the technical notes for either report, so I cannot say how much of the gap comes from which cause. The point is that nobody should be surprised that they differ.

None of this makes either report useless. It means each one answers a slightly different question, and you should know which question before you act on the answer.

Five habits for any owner

Your business has its own versions of this problem. "Sales" can mean orders, invoices or payments. "Response time" can start when the message arrives or when someone sees it. "On time" can mean on the promised day or on the day the customer wanted. When two people use the same word for two things, you get the owner's version of ADP versus BLS, usually in a Monday meeting.

1. Write a one-line definition for every number. What is counted, how it is calculated, where the data comes from and who owns it. This is the heart of the scoreboard I describe in Project Focus, Part 3.
2. Keep the definition constant. If you change it, say so, and restate the history. Otherwise the trend is fiction.
3. Compare like with like. Do not put a number from one source next to a number from another without checking that they mean the same thing.
4. Do not decide on one month. A single month is a signal to look closer. Check the trend over several periods, and when the stakes are high, check a second source.
5. Say how firm each number is. Label it as a count, an estimate or a forecast, so the reader knows how much weight it can carry. The dashboards guide and data-driven project management explain how to choose numbers that hold up.

If you are hiring, or thinking about it

Mixed headlines are a poor reason to hire or to freeze hiring. Your own numbers are a better guide: how many orders are waiting, how many days it takes to deliver, how much overtime the team is working and how often the work has to be redone. If delivery times are climbing and people are stretched, the problem is capacity, and a hire may help. If the work is slow because a step is unclear, more people will only make the confusion bigger. Look at the bottleneck first, and add a person only where the numbers say the work is queued.

A five-minute exercise

Pick the three numbers you look at most often in your business. For each, write the definition in one sentence, and ask a colleague to write theirs without seeing yours. If the two sentences differ, you have found a measurement problem before it becomes a decision problem. Fix the wording first, then collect the data. If you are hiring, the same care applies to your own capacity numbers: see capacity planning and bottlenecks and operations consulting: when to hire it.

What I do not know

I have not read ADP's methodology or the BLS technical notes, and I cannot explain the gap in professional and business services. Two outlets reported slightly different details on ADP's expectations and prior month, so I did not use them. The BLS numbers come from the release on bls.gov as of November 6, 2026, and revisions can change them. This post is my reading, not economic advice, and it says nothing about what will happen next.

Related reading

For the Utah picture published earlier this week, see Utah's economy is resilient, but costs are squeezing margins. For the habit of putting a few trusted numbers in front of you every week, see the Project Focus series and the free weekly review template. If you follow these notes through the feed or the newsletter, what is published here and what comes next explains the plan.

This post summarizes public reports as of November 6, 2026 and reflects my own reading, not an official position. It is not investment, legal, tax or employment advice. Check the original sources for the full figures.

Sources

• Fox Business: Private sector added 86,000 jobs in October, above expectations, ADP says (Nov 4, 2026)
• IBTimes: Private payrolls rise 86,000 in October, ADP report (Nov 4, 2026)
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: The Employment Situation, October 2026 (Nov 6, 2026)

Facts come from the sources above. The reading of those facts is mine.