ADP National Employment Report Easily Tops Median Forecast

The ADP National Employment Report released Wednesday show 216,000 people were added to private sector payrolls in November, topping the median forecast. The estimate was for 165,000, while payrolls for the month of October were revised lower by 28,000 to 119,000.

“For the month of November 2016 we saw very strong job growth that has almost doubled in gains over October 2016,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and head of the ADP Research Institute. “This growth was seen in primarily consumer-driven industries like retail and, leisure and hospitality – across all company sizes. Overall, consumers are feeling confident and are driving the strong performance we currently see in the job market.”

While the report was taken as largely optimistic, as Mr. Yildirmaz noted most of the growth came from low-wage service-sector positions. Service-providing jobs represented 228,000 of total payrolls added in November, while goods-producing sectors lost 11,000. Natural Resources & Mining lost 4,000 and Manufacturing 10,000.

“Businesses hired aggressively in November and there is little evidence that the uncertainty surrounding the presidential election dampened hiring,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said. “In addition, because of the tightening labor market, retailers may be accelerating seasonal hiring to secure an adequate workforce to meet holiday demand, although total expected seasonal hiring may be no higher than last year’s.”

The ADP National Employment Report is conducted by ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis.