Jobs report (nonfarm payrolls)
The most revised number in macro, traded on its first print — which makes the resolution wording unusually important.
- How often
- Monthly, usually the first Friday, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Who decides, and on what
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics. Markets normally resolve on the initially published figure rather than on any later revision.
Open markets on Jobs report (nonfarm payrolls)
Live prediction markets whose question turns on this event. Prices update with the rest of the site.
Will Canada have the highest unemployment rate since 2016 this year?
Volume $9.7K
9 %
▼ −0.2%
Will the October 2026 unemployment rate be 4.1%?
Volume $5.8K
32 %
▼ −0.5%
US unemployment rate at year-end 2030 — Above 10.0%
Volume $5.7K
10 %
▲ +0.0%
Will the October 2026 unemployment rate be 4.2%?
Volume $3.4K
41 %
▲ +2.0%
Will the October 2026 unemployment rate be 4.3%?
Volume $1.9K
20 %
▲ +0.0%
How accurate have these markets been?
The corpus holds 2 scored markets of this kind so far. We publish a hit rate from 30 — fewer than that rewards luck rather than measuring anything.
Measured on our own corpus of resolved markets, using the price seven days before resolution. A band shows a rate only from 30 cases — fewer than that rewards luck. A historical frequency is not a probability for the next one.
Why the revisions are the story
Payrolls is assembled from a survey with a partial initial response, and the later revisions are frequently larger than the amount markets were arguing about beforehand. A print can be revised by more than the width of the entire market's price range.
Since almost every contract settles on the first print, this produces a strange and honest situation: the market can be right about the number that was published and wrong about the number that turned out to be true. Both statements can hold at once, and the contract only cares about the first.
Two numbers, two different markets
The release carries both the payrolls change and the unemployment rate, and they come from different surveys — establishments for one, households for the other. They can point in opposite directions in the same release, and regularly do.
A market on one tells you nothing reliable about the other. Check which survey the contract names.
Common questions
When is the next jobs report?
Usually the first Friday of the month, on a calendar the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a year in advance. The live markets below carry their own resolution dates.
Do jobs report markets settle on revised figures?
Normally on the first print. Revisions to payrolls are often large, so a market can settle correctly on a figure that is later known to be inaccurate — that is a feature of the wording, not a bug in the market.
Is the unemployment rate from the same survey?
No. Payrolls comes from the establishment survey and the unemployment rate from the household survey. They can disagree within the same release, so check which one a contract names.