ADP's revised numbers align more closely with government figures

Private-sector employment figures have undergone a makeover that reflect a better long-term correlation with government data. 

A newly expanded ADP National Employment Report set for unveiling on Thursday also includes revisions of more than a decade's worth of private-sector job growth, lining up 96 percent of the time with government figures. 

ADP recently announced that the firm is working with Moody's Analytics on an enhanced report that uses a new methodology that includes broader categories of businesses and their sizes designed to more closely align with the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. 

As part of the effort, ADP reworked its figures, which were frequently way off of the BLS data, back to 2001. 

The past couple of months of data show a downward revision of jobs growth. 

ADP's report is set for release a day ahead of the government's October report that tracks public and private-sector job growth, the final report before the election. 

In addition, the overall sample size used to create the report has been increased to 406,000 from 344,000 U.S. companies covering 23 million up from 21 million, representing than 20 percent of all private-sector employees. 

Started in 2006, the ADP report is a derived from actual payroll data from an anonymous subset of their clients.