U.S. private payrolls dip 8,000 in September

 /
/

ROSELAND, N.J. – Payrolls at U.S. companies shrank by 8,000 jobs last month, after losing a larger-than-previously-thought 37,000 jobs in August, ADP Employment Services said today in its monthly report.
The September report “continues to offer evidence of a weak labor market,” Joel Prakken, chairman of survey company Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, wrote in the report. But, he added, it “does not reflect two special factors that might have further depressed employment in September … the strike of some 27,000 machinists against Boeing, and job losses related to hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast.”
Analysts had expected a loss of 50,000 non-farm jobs would follow the originally reported August loss of 33,000 positions (READ MORE), based on the median estimate from a survey of 27 economists by Bloomberg News. (Their estimates of private non-farm job losses in September ranged from 20,000 to 135,000.)
The goods-producing sector lost 72,000 jobs last month, in its 22nd consecutive monthly decline, the survey found. Within that sector, manufacturing employment fell by 48,000 jobs in its 25th consecutive decline.
“These losses were somewhat offset by employment gains in the service-providing sector of the economy, which advanced by 64,000,” Prakken said.
Job losses last month were concentrated at medium-sized businesses – those with 50 to 499 workers – which reduced their work forces by 30,000 jobs, the survey found. Large businesses – those employing 500 or more – pared 6,000 jobs from their payrolls.
Meanwhile, small companies – those with 49 or fewer workers – added 28,000 jobs in September, after adding 17,000 in August, the survey found.
The survey found “no lessening of the recent strain on employment” in the hard-hit residential construction industry and home-sales and mortgage-lending sector, Prakken said. Financial-services employment “advanced just 4,000 during the month.” And construction employment shrank by 29,000 jobs, in its 22nd straight decline, bringing total losses to 409,000 since the industry’s peak in August 2006.
ADP’s monthly report is prepared by Macroeconomic Advisers, based on ADP payroll data from about 399,000 employers with nearly 24 million workers nationwide. Unlike federal payroll figures, it does not consider employment by government agencies.
A report due Friday from the U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to show that the nation lost 105,000 public and private jobs last month, based on economists’ forecasts in the Bloomberg survey. Their predictions also call for the national jobless rate to hold steady in September at a five-year high of 6.1 percent.
“There’s no question labor-market conditions are tough, but the usual cyclical payroll meltdown has not yet happened,” Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics Ltd. in Valhalla, N.Y., told Bloomberg News. “It will, though, sooner or later.”
ADP Employment Services – a division of Automatic Data Processing Inc. (NYSE: ADP) – handles payroll for 1 in 6 private-sector employees nationwide. For more information, including the latest monthly ADP National Employment Report, visit www.adp.com.

No posts to display