ADP Jobs Report: +135,000

The big jobs report is this Friday morning. Every Wednesday before the jobs report, we get a preview from ADP, the payroll people. They release their employment report which only covers private sector jobs.

This morning, ADP said the US economy created 135,000 private sector jobs last month. That was 10,000 more than forecast. This was the worst month for new jobs since last October, but it was still better than expectations. Obviously, the recent storms had an impact.

Job growth was concentrated at larger firms, with businesses that employ 500 or more workers growing by 79,000. Smaller firms seemed to be hit the most by the storm damage, as companies that employ fewer than 50 workers saw their staffing decline by 7,000.

On the other side, goods-producing firms saw a sizable boost in hiring, gaining 48,000 positions thanks to a jump of 29,000 for construction as well as 18,000 new positions in manufacturing. Mining and natural resources also continued to grow, adding 1,000.

Not surprisingly, services accounted for the bulk of the job growth at 88,000 new jobs. That was led by a gain of 51,000 in professional and business services. However, the sector was held back by a decline of 18,000 in the usually strong trade, transportation and utilities sector and a drop of 11,000 in information services.

Here’s the recent trend. The ADP report is the blue bar. The red bar is the government’s.

Note that the red bar isn’t the full NFP number but just the private sector.

Posted by on October 4th, 2017 at 11:54 am


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