US private sector shuns 23,000 jobs in March - ADP National Employment Report

ADP 's National Employment Report has revealed a drop of  23,000 in private sector employment from February to March on a seasonally adjusted basis. The ADP National Employment Report, created by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP®), in partnership with Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC, is derived from actual payroll data and measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month.

According to ADP's non-farm private employment report for March 2010, total employment was down by 23,000 jobs, with small businesses (1-49 employees) accounting for 12, 000 of those lost jobs. Medium businesses (50-499 employees) shunned around 4,000 jobs, while large businesses (>499 employees) also reduced 7,000 jobs. The report indicated that the goods producing sector reduced 51,000 jobs, even though the service providing sector added around 28,000. The manufacturing industry is said to have lost around 9,000 jobs. All data in the ADP National Employment Report has its origins on the size of payroll.  The ADP National Employment Report is a measure of employment derived from an anonymous subset of roughly 500,000 US business clients. During the twelve month period through December 2009, this subset averaged over 360,000 US business clients and over 22 million US employees working in all private industrial sectors. 

Gary Butler, President & CEO, ADP said, "American businesses are on the cusp of recovery yet this report shows that they remain hesitant to increase their payrolls. The federal HIRE Act offers businesses straightforward, immediate incentives that are available for each job they create. The HIRE Act and similar incentives are necessary to expand payrolls and reverse the trend in private sector employment."

According to Joel Prakken, Chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, "The March employment decline was the smallest since employment began falling in February of 2008. Yet, the lack of improvement in employment from February to March is consistent with the pause in the decline of initial unemployment claims that occurred during the winter." Prakken said that since employment, as measured by the ADP Report, was not restrained in February by the effects of inclement weather, the March data does not incorporate a weather-related rebound that could be present in this month's BLS data. He also said that it does not include any federal hiring in March for the 2010 Census. “For both these reasons, it is reasonable to expect that Friday's employment figure from the BLS will be stronger than today's estimate in the ADP National Employment Report," he said.