Led by small companies, U.S. businesses added jobs at a robust
pace last month, according to a tally of hiring released
Wednesday.
Private-sector jobs in the U.S. increased by 215,000 in
November, says the national employment report compiled by payroll
processor Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) and forecasting firm
Moody's Analytics.
November's increase was the strongest gain in a year.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected ADP to
report a smaller November increase of 178,000 jobs. The October ADP
employment increase was revised to 184,000 from 130,000 reported a
month ago.
"Employers across all industries and company sizes looked
through the political battle in Washington. If anything, job growth
appears to be picking up," the report said.
The ADP estimate is released ahead of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics' employment situation report released usually on the
first Friday of each month.
Economists expect the BLS report will show a job gain of 180,000
in November, on top of the 204,000 slots added in October.
Last month, the ADP report failed to foreshadow the
stronger-than-expected jump in October payrolls. Following such a
large miss, economists seem unlikely to change their expectations
for Friday's top-line number.
Forecasters also expect the jobless rate to slip back to 7.2%
from 7.3% in October. The October rate was skewed by the federal
government shutdown.
According to ADP, firms employing between 1-49 workers hired at
a strong pace, adding 102,000 new workers in November. Medium-sized
businesses with payrolls of 50-499 workers increased payrolls by
48,000 employees. Large firms, or businesses with 500 or more
employees, hired 65,000 more workers.
Service-sector payrolls increased by 176,000 slots last month,
while the factory sector were up a large 18,000 new positions.
Financial services payrolls increased by 5,000 slots.
In other labor-related news, job-search website Bright.com
estimates 183,000 jobs were created in November. The company uses
its aggregation of job postings to estimate the payrolls
number.
ADP, of Roseland, N.J., offers payroll processing, human
resource and benefit administration services to about 600,000
clients worldwide. Economics firm Moody's Analytics is a subsidiary
of Moody's Corporation.
Write to Kathleen Madigan at kathleen.madigan@wsj.com
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