The ADP National Employment Report 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 May, private sector employment rose by 0.81% to 122.0 million, the largest monthly increase in a year. Payrolls in goods-producing industries increased by 0.63% to 20.5 million, while the number of jobs in the services sector increased by 0.84% to 101.5 million. Small businesses added 333,000 payrolls last month, midsized businesses added 338,000, and large businesses added 308,000 new jobs.
The number of payrolls in the private sector rose for the fifth consecutive as the labor market continues its slow, but seemingly steady, recovery. The number of jobs in the private sector exceeded 129 million prior to the pandemic and its related shutdowns, so there is still some way to go until the labor market can be considered to have made a full recovery. Employment in the leisure and hospitality industry surged last month, with about 440,000 payrolls being added. This industry was the most impacted by the pandemic, and it has only recently been allowed to resume somewhat normal operations. A number of those new payrolls are likely just laid-off employees returning to work.
Employment in the leisure & hospitality industry still remains considerably below its pre-pandemic level. The two other industries that reported a significant increase in payrolls in May were education/health and transportation/utilities. Most other industries reported only modest gains, with the exception of information services, which reported a slight reduction in employment.
June 3, 2021