ADP Nonfarm Payrolls is a measure of non-farm private sector employment, which is obtained by utilizing an anonymous subset of roughly 400,000 U.S. businesses, which are clients of ADP. Typically, an increase in employment fuels growth in the American economy, while a decrease in employment slows growth.
In April, private sector employment surged by 742,209 to 121.1 million after rising by over half-a-million in March. Payrolls in goods-producing industries rose by 106,351 to 20.4 million, while the services sector added 635,858 jobs, totaling 101.7 million employed individuals in the sector. Small businesses added 235,000 payrolls, midsized businesses added 230,000, and large businesses added 277,000.
The number of payrolls in the private sector rose for the fourth consecutive month as the labor market continues its recovery. Prior to the pandemic and the subsequent shutdowns, private sector payrolls hovered above 129 million. The leisure and hospitality industry had by far the largest gain last month, adding 237,000 jobs. Now, it is likely that many of these are not necessarily new jobs, but rather people returning to work. Leisure and hospitality was perhaps the industry that suffered the most as a result of the pandemic, being forced to shut down or operate at a reduced capacity for longer than other industries. As many of these restrictions have been rolled back, many of the industry’s furloughed workers have been able to go back to work. The industry will likely also begin to add new jobs as all the pent-up consumer demand for leisure activities is released throughout the summer months. Other industries that saw notable gains in April were transportation and utilities, professional and business services, and education and health. The only industry that shed jobs last month was information services.
May 5, 2021