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.
Last month, private sector employment increased by 174,188 to a total of 119.8 million. Payrolls in goods-producing businesses grew by 18,643 to 20.25 million, while the service industry saw a gain of 155,546 new payrolls and currently sit at a total of 99.6 million. Small businesses added 51,000 payrolls, midsized businesses added 84,000, and large businesses added 39,000.
Payrolls increased last month after a decline in December that broke a seven-month long growth streak. Previously, employment had fallen in March and April of last year due to COVID-19 pandemic and the strict lockdowns that quickly followed it. As these measures were eased, payrolls began increasing again. However, a surge in cases in late 2020 led to some of the stricter restrictions being reimposed, which forced many businesses to layoff some of their employees. The restrictions began being lifted once again in January, allowing some of the jobs that had been lost to be recovered. Some of the hardest-hit industries, such as leisure and hospitality, transportation, and manufacturing, showed strong employment growth last month. Professional services and education & health had the strongest growth, adding a combined 94,000 jobs. The only industries that shed jobs were natural resources & mining and information services.
February 3, 2021