Private sector employment increased by 291,000 jobs from December to January according to the January ADP National Employment Report.
“Mild winter weather provided a significant boost to the January employment gain,” said Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The leisure and hospitality and construction industries in particular experienced an outsized increase in jobs. Abstracting from the vagaries of the data underlying job growth is close to 125,000 per month, which is consistent with low and stable unemployment.”
According to data released on February 7 by the Labor Department, the unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.6%, but for the right reason as the labor force participation rate increased 0.2 percentage points to 63.4%, matching its highest level since June 2013, reported CNBC.
The ADP National Employment Report® is published monthly by the ADP Research Institute® in close collaboration with Moody's Analytics and its experienced team of labor market researchers. The ADP National Employment Report provides a monthly snapshot of U.S. Nonfarm Private Employment based on actual transactional payroll data.
The report breaks down Total U.S. Nonfarm Private Employment by Sector and Company Size. All are worth reviewing each month (and tracking in a time series) to get a complete picture of what's happening and how job market conditions are trending in your business sector.
“Goods producers added jobs, particularly in construction and manufacturing, while service providers experienced a large gain, led by leisure and hospitality,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Job creation was strong among mid-sized companies, though small companies enjoyed the strongest performance in the last 18 months.”
Here are the three stats from the most recent report that you need to know:
Large Businesses Continue to Hire
Small and mid-sized businesses in the U.S. hired the most new workers in January, with small businesses (1-49 employees) leading the way at 94,000 new jobs. Mid-sized businesses (50-499 employees) added 128,000, while large businesses (500+ employees) contributed another 69,000.
Services Companies are Growth Engine
The services-providing sector added 237,000 jobs in January with the jobs coming from the leisure/hospitality (96,000), education/health (70,000) and professional/business services (49,000) sectors.
Construction Adds Jobs in January
The goods-producing sector added 54,000 jobs to the economy, led by a boost in construction of 47,000 jobs. Manufacturing created another 10,000, with natural resource/mining losing 2000.
The nation’s procurement executives who keep a close watch on the economy each month are reporting that the non-manufacturing sector grew in January for the 120th consecutive month.
The Non-Manufacturing Index registered 55.5%, which is 0.6 percentage point higher than the seasonally adjusted December reading of 54.9%. This represents continued growth in the non-manufacturing sector, at a slightly faster rate.A reading above 50% indicates the non-manufacturing sector economy is generally expanding; below 50% indicates the non-manufacturing sector is generally contracting.
Employment activity in the non-manufacturing sector grew in January for the 71st consecutive month, report the procurement executives.
According to the ADP National Employment Report, franchise employment grew in January by 45,100 jobs.
The matched sample used to develop the ADP National Employment Report was derived from ADP payroll data, which represents 411,000 U.S. clients employing nearly 24 million workers in the U.S. The December total of jobs added was revised down from 202,000 to 199,000.