Strange Things Lurk Under the Hood of the Payroll Numbers
A spectacular jobs boom in one small sector — sports teams and clubs — appears to be a statistical mirage, underscoring how noisy and just plain wrong single-industry data can be.
Probably not a pickleball effect.
Photographer: Mike Stobe/Getty Images
As the monthly nonfarm payroll employment numbers repeatedly blew past economists’ forecasts over the past couple of years, one small sector in particular stood out. In 2023, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, sports teams and clubs accounted for just 0.1% of US payroll jobs but 2.6% of all job growth. As of April, they employed 75% more people, on a seasonally adjusted basis, than before the pandemic.
When I first stumbled across this apparent sports-employment boom a couple of months ago, I wondered what could be driving it. Was it the rise of sports analytics? The proliferation of weird new sports leagues? Something else? (It’s not the professionalization of college sports — those jobs appear all to be counted under private and public education.)