Ok I understand that USD NFP is prety much the biggest news event in forex. what I dont nderstand is why.
As I understand it, its simply a measure of employment, excluding workers in agriculture. Why is that so important? There are employment measures other than this arent there?, so why is this specific one such a big deal?
Im in UK where we dont have such a thing, we just have unemployment rates as far as I know, or is NFP the american equivalent and there ARE no other employment figures in the US?
im not planning on trading this friday, it could either wipe me out or make me lots of profit, but what way its going to go seems to be anyones guess.
“The total non-farm payroll accounts for approximately 80% of the workers who produce the entire [B]gross domestic product[/B] of the United States. The non-farm payroll statistic is reported monthly, on the first Friday of the month, and is used to assist government policy makers and economists determine the current state of the economy and predict future levels of economic activity.”
I don’t know who to give credit to on the above, but it is not me.
Monthly reportings most likely give leading indications to quarterly reportings too.
I see. but surely including ALL the payrolls, with that extra 20% would be an even better indicator of the economy? 20% is quite a lot!!
I would guess the reason for not including the others is that its hard to get the data for it, being farmers perhaps they dont have computers to send back all that data from?
It’s not just farmers. Government employees and similar are excluded. The exclusion for the NFP is to more accurately measure the private sector. Since the USA is a “free” capitalist nation, the private sector is the main concern.
But the above 20% exclusion, is not what was being ilustrated for the NFP. The description said the NFP is 80% of the GDP.
