Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP)

Nonfarm payrolls (NFP) is the headline number of the monthly US Employment Situation report: the net change in jobs across the economy excluding farm workers, private households, and a few small categories. Released at 8:30 a.m. ET, usually on the first Friday of the month, it is the single most-traded data print in global markets.

It dominates because employment sits on both sides of the Fed’s mandate: a hot number argues against cuts, a weak one demands them, and because the report is dense: alongside the payroll count come the unemployment rate (from a separate household survey), average hourly earnings, and revisions to the prior two months. Desks trade the composite, not just the headline.

• The headline carries a ~±100k confidence interval, so revisions frequently rewrite the story.
• A “strong headline, weak internals” print (big NFP, rising unemployment, soft wages) often reverses the first move within the hour.

Worked example: Consensus is +160k. The print lands at +85k, unemployment ticks from 4.1% to 4.3%, and the prior month is revised down 40k. The 2-year yield collapses 16bp inside two minutes, 2s10s bull-steepens 8bp, and fed funds futures move from pricing one cut this year to nearly three. That is roughly a −1.5 z-score surprise, a genuine outlier.