In fact, in a directional sense, both the household and payroll surveys are giving the same signals. In the table below, we compare the recent trends in monthly job gains measured in both surveys. The coverage in the two reports is slightly different. Unlike the payroll count, the household survey includes the self-employed and counts multiple jobs held by a single person as a single instance of employment. Because of this, the BLS also reports an adjusted version of the household survey, called the payroll concept adjusted employment measure. This payroll-consistent measure is designed to control for definitional differences across the household and establishment reports and also makes statistical adjustments for changes to the population controls in various years. So we include the data from this measure in the last column of the table.
Overall, all three measures suggest a weaker trend over the last six months than over the last nine months. All three measures also indicate that things were somewhat stronger on average in the last three months than in the prior three months. The bottom line in our view is that, though the employment levels can be quite different across the three measures, all suggest that the jobs picture has improved somewhat in the past three months.
http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2012/10/divergent-jobs-reports-will-the-real-state-of-the-labor-market-please-stand-up.html
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