The US economy lost 32,000 private-sector jobs in September
Job seekers walk in line to a job fair at the Central Florida Fairgrounds attended by employers looking to fill openings on July 10 in Orlando.
By Alicia Wallace, CNN
(CNN) — Private payrolls plunged in September, complicating the picture for the US economy as policymakers and investors struggle to assess the state of the labor market amid a government shutdown.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is unlikely to release the monthly jobs report this Friday due to the closure. That means many flying blind without critical economic data are having to key into any information they can get, including Wednesday’s private sector jobs data from payroll company ADP.
US private-sector businesses lost 32,000 jobs in September, according to the report. August’s previously estimated 54,000 payroll gains were downwardly revised to negative 3,000.
However, ADP’s latest numbers come with some qualifications: “Rebenchmarking” of the data was a significant factor behind the negative August revision and September’s estimated job losses, ADP’s chief economist Nela Richardson said Wednesday.
ADP recalibrates its estimates annually to the full-year 2024 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which provides a comprehensive read on the number of businesses, employees and wages at the state, regional and county level because it derives that data from quarterly tax reports submitted by businesses to their states. However, it is heavily lagged.
While ADP’s estimates don’t often correlate with the official monthly jobs numbers when they’re released days later, the report is sometimes viewed as an indicator of the labor market’s trajectory.
And that outlook has been looking increasingly bleak. In addition to the private-sector job losses, the latest (and last-for-now) release from the BLS showed that the US labor market activity has grown increasingly stagnant.
Excluding the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, the hiring rate (hires as a percentage of total employment) fell in August to 3.2%, matching the lowest rate since 2013, according to the BLS’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report released Tuesday.
September’s estimated job gains, which ADP tabulated using anonymized and aggregated payroll data from its clients, came in well below economists’ expectations for 50,000 jobs added.
US stock futures were broadly lower Wednesday in response to uncertainty around the government shutdown and remained at similar levels after the report was released: Dow futures were down 148 points, or 0.32%. S&P 500 futures fell 0.4% and Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.5%. The 10-year Treasury yield moved lower to 4.108% as investors snapped up bonds.
This story is developing and will be updated.
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