Hiring Among U.S. Employers Accelerated in September

By Maria Martinez

Private-sector job growth in the U.S. gained pace in September, beating forecasts and showing the resilience of the labor market despite slowing economic growth and increasing recession fears.

Employment in the nonfarm private sector rose by 208,000 in September from 185,000 in August, data from the ADP National Employment Report showed Wednesday.

Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected the ADP reading to come in at an increase of 200,000.

"While job growth is stable, it remains below the recent three-month average," the report said.

The ADP estimate is based on aggregated payroll data of more than 25 million U.S. workers and is independent from the Labor Department official data. The report's methodology has been upgraded and developed with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and includes new data on wages. Before the change in methodology, the ADP series could diverge considerably from the Labor Department's data.

"We are continuing to see steady job gains," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.

Gains in employment focused in medium-sized businesses, which added 90,000 jobs. Small and large businesses also created jobs, but less so than their medium peers, with 58,000 and 60,000 new payrolls, respectively.

By sector, services providers added 237,000 jobs, and 147,000 of them were created in trade, transportation and utilities, the data showed.

The goods-producing industry lost 29,000 jobs, of which 16,000 were in natural resources and mining and 13,000 were lost in manufacturing, according to the data.

The report included new pay data, which is based on the salaries of almost 10 million individual employees over a 12-month period.

Annual pay was up 7.8% in September, ADP said. "While job stayers saw a pay increase, annual pay growth for job changers in September is down from August," Ms. Richardson said.

The U.S. Department of Labor is expected to release its September employment report on Friday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal are expecting it to show nonfarm payrolls up by 275,000, while the unemployment rate is seen remaining at 3.7%.

Write to Maria Martinez at maria.martinez@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 05, 2022 08:59 ET (12:59 GMT)

Automatic Data Processing (NASDAQ:ADP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024