The ADP numbers are missing the increase in BLS employment

ADP reported today that private non-farm employment increased by 55,000 in May. ADP is widely thought of as a good predictor of the BLS figure which comes out tomorrow. But lately the ADP numbers have been way off, as the graph below shows. Last month, for example, ADP showed an increase of 32,000 - two days later the BLS came out with an increase of 231,000. Since January ADP has understated the BLS numbers by about half a million jobs. The difference between ADP and BLS numbers appears to be larger and more persistent now than it was in 2009; I wonder why. At any rate, the fact that ADP is predicting sluggish jobs growth is not convincing evidence that the BLS number will not be large.