ADP reported a 103k increase in new private sector jobs in the US, against expectations of 130k and 106k (revised from 113k) a month earlier.
This indicator was designed as the last insight on the jobs market before the official data. In the last three months, according to ADP, the private sector has been creating an average of 100k new jobs per month. We saw a similar slowdown at the end of 2018, followed by a year of stagnation and a reversal to decline before the pandemic hit.
The slowdown in the labour market comes as interest rates come under pressure and the potential for a quick recovery from the pandemic is exhausted.
The importance of the ADP reports to the markets is diminishing as they increasingly diverge from official data. The difference began to accumulate in 2018 when the official data continued the trend of employment growth with stagnant or declining numbers from an independent source.
