ADP reports 38,000 August jobs

ADP said on Wednesday, September 2, that U.S. private-sector employers added 38,000 jobs in August, undershooting economists’ expectations for 47,000 and marking the smallest monthly gain since January. The payroll processor’s July figure was revised up to 46,000 from 44,000. The report landed two days before the U.S. Labor Department’s broader August employment release, which investors will use to compare ADP’s private-payroll snapshot with the government’s count. ADP said base pay for all private-sector workers rose 3.2% from a year earlier, while gross pay rose 4.7%. For job-stayers, base pay increased 3.0% and gross pay 4.4%; for job-changers, base pay rose 4.7% and gross pay 7.3%, according to the company’s new Pay Insights breakdown. (mediacenter.adp.com) ### How weak was the August ADP number? The 38,000 increase was below the 47,000 consensus estimate cited by Bloomberg and Dow Jones and below July’s revised 46,000 gain. CNBC said the August total was the slowest month since January. ADP’s report measures private payroll growth only, using anonymized payroll data from more than 26 million U.S. employees. (mediacenter.adp.com) The company describes the report as an independent, high-frequency view of the private-sector labor market produced with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. (cnbc.com) ### Which industries added jobs and which lost them? Education and health services added 45,000 jobs in August, leisure and hospitality added 16,000, and construction added 12,000, according to CNBC’s summary of the ADP release. Those three categories accounted for most of the month’s gains. Manufacturing lost 17,000 jobs, professional and business services lost 16,000, and natural resources and mining and trade, transportation and utilities each lost 5,000, CNBC reported. (mediacenter.adp.com) Yahoo Finance also said education and healthcare drove most of the gains while manufacturing and business and professional services posted losses. (cnbc.com) ### Did hiring differ by company size? Large employers accounted for most of the increase. Companies with 500 or more workers added 34,000 jobs, while firms with fewer than 50 employees added 3,000, CNBC reported. ADP’s employment-report site showed small businesses with 1-19 employees added 27,000 jobs and those with 20-49 employees added 4,000, while mid-sized firms added 2,000 in the 50-249 category and 6,000 in the 250-499 category. (cnbc.com) ### What did ADP say about wages and hiring patterns? Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said pay data now offers a clearer read on uneven hiring. “Pay can tell us a lot about today’s choppy hiring,” Richardson said in the company’s release. (cnbc.com) She said employers were reacting to “demographic change, persistent inflation, and AI’s effects on jobs.” (adpemploymentreport.com) ADP said its August release introduced expanded geographic data and a more detailed pay-data platform, including separate tracking for base pay and gross pay across 56 metropolitan areas. The company said the changes were intended to provide deeper labor-market detail by worker mobility, demographics, sector, employer size and pay quartile. (mediacenter.adp.com) ### What comes next after the ADP report? The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release the August Employment Situation report on Friday, September 4, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. CNBC said economists expect that report to show a 53,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls after a 23,000 decline in July, while Yahoo Finance cited a 55,000 estimate for total U.S. job growth. (bls.gov) (mediacenter.adp.com)