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Glossary · Forex

Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP)

The monthly US report on jobs added outside farming — one of the most market-moving releases for the US dollar.

By Sky Trade editorial teamUpdated

Non-Farm Payrolls is the headline figure of the US Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, usually published on the first Friday of the month at 8:30 a.m. New York time. It estimates how many jobs the US economy added or lost in the previous month, excluding farm workers and a few other categories. The same report includes the unemployment rate and average hourly earnings.

NFP matters because employment feeds straight into expectations for Federal Reserve policy. A strong report can lift the dollar on the idea of higher rates for longer; a weak one can do the opposite.

What traders should know:

  • the first move is often violent and can reverse within minutes;
  • revisions to earlier months can matter as much as the headline;
  • wage growth sometimes outweighs the jobs count.

For short-expiry trades the minutes around NFP are among the least predictable of the month, and many traders deliberately sit them out. NFP has no effect on Sky Trade's OTC instruments. See economic calendar basics and the economic calendar entry.

Example

Forecast +180,000 jobs, actual +260,000. USD/JPY jumps 70 pips in two minutes, then gives back 40 of them over the next half-hour as traders digest the wage figures.

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