WASHINGTON(Reuters) – U.S. private employers hired far fewer workers than expected in August, but the labor market continues to steadily recover.
Private payrolls increased by 374,000 jobs last month, the ADP National Employment Report showed on Wednesday. Data for July was revised slightly down to show 326,000 jobs added instead of the initially reported 330,000.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private payrolls would increase by 613,000 jobs.
The ADP report is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics and was published ahead of the Labor Department’s more comprehensive and closely watched employment report for August on Friday. But it has a dismal record predicting the private payrolls count in the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment report because of methodology differences.
ADP’s initial private payrolls print for July far undershot the 703,000 private jobs reported by the BLS.
Economists expect hiring remained strong in August, though persistent worker shortages and a resurgence in COVID-19 infections, which are being driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, could have slowed momentum.
Labor market indicators were mixed in August. Data from Homebase, a payroll scheduling and tracking company, showed its employees working index falling in August from July.
But the Paychex/IHS Markit employment watch released on Tuesday showed its small business jobs index rose in August to the highest level since January 2018. Though the Conference Board’s labor market differential – derived from data on consumers’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get – slipped in August, it was not too far from July’s 21-year high.
According to a Reuters survey of economists, private payrolls likely increased by 700,000 jobs in August after rising 703,000 in July. With government employment expected to have increased by about 50,000, that would lead to overall payrolls advancing by 750,000 jobs. The economy created 943,000 in July.
(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
