According to the payroll processing firm ADP, private companies in the U.S. added a whopping 475,000 positions in February.
This jump in new jobs happened faster than expected. In fact, that number even beat out the Dow Jones estimate for open positions, which was 400,000.
Revisions Show That Job Market Could Be On the Mend
In addition to that, ADP also dramatically revised its January job count. Originally, they had reported a loss of 301,000. After revising, ADP changed that to a gain of 509,000. That’s an upward revision of 810,000. It brought their tally closer to the numbers the Labor Department came up with. According to the Labor Department, there was a surge of 467,000 jobs in January.
According to the report, ADP conducted annual revisions of its count in February. This was to make sure the numbers lined up with the data that the Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics had. That means that other months over the past year also saw adjustments. However, there was no greater leap than the one that happened in January 2022.
“Hiring remains robust but capped by reduced labor supply post-pandemic,” said ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson. “Last month large companies showed they are well-poised to compete with higher wages and benefit offerings, and posted the strongest reading since the early days of the pandemic recovery.”
ADP Job Findings By Category
Let’s break down the ADP findings. Companies with 500 or more workers were responsible for almost all of the hiring that took place in February. Those companies added 552,000 new jobs. Midsized businesses only added 18,000 new positions. Finally, firms with fewer than 50 employees recorded a loss of 96,000 jobs.
By sector, leisure and hospitality had the biggest job gains. In that industry alone, ADP states there was a job increase of 170,000. Trade, transportation, and utilities had 98,000 new jobs. Professional and business services rose by 72,000.
On the lower end of things, goods-producing sectors contributed significantly fewer jobs. Manufacturing was only up by 30,000, and construction was up by 26,000.
The ADP isn’t the only way that these jobs are tracked. In fact, it’s more of a precursor for another payrolls report, which is put out by BLS. The BLS report is expected to come out this Friday, March 4.
It’s important to note that the numbers reported by ADP and BLS can differ greatly. However, as we saw earlier, data is revisited to make sure that it’s as accurate as possible. As far as final numbers go, we’ll have to wait for all of the reports to come out. CNBC reports that economists that were surveyed by Dow Jones expect that we actually added around 440,000 jobs in February.
