September’s private sector job growth rebounded after a five-month slowdown, per ADP’s Employment Report, which showed that employers added a higher than expected 143,000 new jobs. In addition, the breadth of job creations was better in September than in August, which had more sectors shedding jobs.
However, small businesses continue to struggle, as those with fewer than 50 employees lost 8,000 jobs. This is compared to 150,000 new jobs added among medium and large companies combined.
What’s the bottom line? The big story in the report was wages, with annual pay gains continuing to decelerate for both job-stayers (+4.7% from +4.8%) and job changers (+6.6% from +7.3%), reflecting a decline in wage-pressured inflation. Nela Richardson, Chief Economist for ADP, noted, “Stronger hiring didn’t require stronger pay growth last month. Typically, workers who change jobs see faster pay growth. But that premium over job-stayers shrank to 1.9 percent, matching a low we last saw in January.”