The report showed that the number of jobs eliminated since the beginning of this year has exceeded the one million mark, the highest since the spread of the Corona pandemic, while new hiring plans fell to their lowest levels since 2011, and seasonal jobs witnessed their weakest level since their registration began in 2012.
This comes in light of the suspension of the publication of government statistics as a result of the ongoing federal shutdown, which forced economists to rely on private sector data to assess the labor market situation.
Despite a slight increase in the number of private sector workers during October, this increase does not reflect a real improvement, especially with sectors such as commercial services continuing to reduce the number of jobs for the third month in a row.
The “ADP” report stated that the private sector added 42,000 jobs during October, after a modest increase in September, while economists’ expectations indicated an increase of approximately 28,000 jobs. The government shutdown also led to the postponement of the publication of the official employment report that was scheduled to be issued at the beginning of the month.
“ADP” clarified that wage growth remained stable at 4.5% for employees who retained their jobs, and 6.7% for those who moved to new jobs. In contrast, Matthew Martin, chief economist at “Oxford Economics,” confirmed that “ADP” data only includes companies that use its services to manage payroll, making it a complementary indicator and not a substitute for the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
