Goods-producing employment declined by 6,000 jobs last month, according to this morning’s ADP National Employment Report, but the total job tally for July still beat analysts’ expectations just slightly, coming in at 179,000 jobs added instead of the predicted 170,000. That was a slight increase from June, which saw an upwardly revised 176,000, 4,000 more than originally reported.
Advertisement
Medium-sized businesses, with between 50 and 499 staff, added 68,000 jobs, up from last month’s 56,000.
The service-providing sector of the United States economy continues to drive private job growth.
But construction companies shed 6,000 positions in June, the second-straight month of job cuts in that sector. Professional and business services, and trade, transportation and utilities both indicated a slowdown in the rate of hiring.
“Job growth remains strong, but is moderating as the economy approaches full employment”, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc.in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “The nation’s biggest economic problem will soon be the lack of available workers”.
The ADP data were consistent with forecasts that the Labor Department will report Friday that the USA added 185,000 net new jobs in the private and public sectors last month.
While U.S. consumers have been buoyed by steady job additions, burgeoning income gains and cheap borrowing costs, overall growth has shown pockets of weakness in the economy that threaten to derail job-market progress.
Advertisement
The last two months have seen discrepancies of over 100k, highlighting the fact that ADP is still an imperfect proxy for the already volatile NFP.
