ADP Data on Business Hiring Gain Shows Solid US Job Market
Companies adding more workers to U.S. payrolls in May than forecast indicates the job market is powering ahead, data from the ADP Research Institute in Roseland, N.J., showed June 1.
Highlights of ADP Report
• Private payrolls rose by 253,000 (estimated 180,000) after revised 174,000 gain in April.
• Goods-producing industries, which include manufacturers and builders, increased headcounts by 48,000 after 6,000.
• Service providers boosted payrolls by 205,000, the most since November, after 167,000.
Key Takeaway
Businesses continue to hire workers in addition to retaining existing employees, indicating sustained job-market progress that helps explain why Federal Reserve policymakers are projected to raise interest rates when they meet later this month.
The ADP report may help bolster economists’ forecasts for the private payrolls tally in the May jobs report due from the Labor Department on June 2.
Economist Views
“Job growth is rip-roaring,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pa., said in a statement. Moody’s produces the figures with ADP. “The current pace of job growth is nearly three times the rate necessary to absorb growth in the labor force. Increasingly, businesses’ number one challenge will be a shortage of labor.”
Other Details
• Hiring in construction jumped by 37,000.
• Factories added 8,000 workers.
• Companies employing 500 or more workers increased staffing by 57,000 jobs; payrolls rose by 113,000 at medium-size businesses, or those with 50 to 499 employees; while small companies’ payrolls climbed 83,000.
