Ahead of this morning’s ADP National Employment Report, economists predicted that private payrolls would add 200,000 jobs. The actual number, 169,000 jobs, represented the lowest job gains since January 2014.
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“Fallout from the collapse of oil prices and the surging value of the dollar are weighing on job creation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, which produces the report with payroll processor ADP. “Employment in the energy sector and manufacturing is declining. However, this should prove temporary and job growth will reaccelerate this summer.”
Carlos Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of ADP, noted that employers “with 500 or more employees had the slowest growth.” Large employers grew by only 5,000 jobs last month, while medium-sized companies (those with between 50 and 499 employees) added 70,000 jobs, and small companies with fewer than 50 employees added 94,000 jobs.
Manufacturing declined by 10,000 jobs last month, after losing 3,000 jobs in March. Construction grew by 23,000, for a net loss of 1,000 in the goods-producing sector.
The service-providing sector increased by 170,000 jobs. Trade, transportation, and utilities added 44,000 jobs, while professional and business services added 34,000 jobs, and financial activities added 7,000 jobs, down from March’s 12,000 jobs added. The service producing sector as a whole was slightly down from the previous month’s gains of 172,000.
Reuters predicts that Friday morning’s report from the Labor Department will show the addition of 224,000 jobs, a sharp increase from March’s gains of 126,000 jobs, plus a slight dip in the unemployment rate.
The PayScale Index, which measures the change in wages for all employed US workers, showed a growth in wages of 1.8 percent for the first quarter of 2015, and predicts a second quarter year-over-year increase of 0.7 percent.
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