ADP’s Employment Report showed that private employers added 99,000 new jobs in August versus the 145,000 that had been forecasted, marking the fifth straight month that job creation slowed. Gains in education and health services, construction, and leisure and hospitality were offset by losses seen in the manufacturing, information, and professional and business services sectors. Small businesses also continue to struggle, as those with fewer than 50 employees lost 9,000 jobs. This is compared to 110,000 new jobs added among medium and large companies combined.
What’s the bottom line? Nela Richardson, Chief Economist for ADP, noted, “The job market’s downward drift brought us to slower-than-normal hiring after two years of outsized growth.” She added that “the next indicator to watch is wage growth, which is stabilizing after a dramatic post-pandemic slowdown.”