The Temp Staffing index finally fell last week, 4 weeks after it historically has. The index, however only fell to 86 from the pre Thanksgiving 92. This 6% fall is half the 12% average fall of the previous two years (I omitted the collapse on ’08 as it would skew the average). When we see this and see ADP numbers like we saw today of +325K (I think that is a bit to the high side given ADP admits error of +/- 100k) is should not come as a surprise.
Temp employment is telling us that employment will continue to improve as we go into 2012.
Here is the ADP/NFP relationship for those interested:
Here is the temp staffing chart:
