Growth in private payrolls better than expected: report

Growth in private payrolls beat analyst estimates in November, according to a new report from a payroll processing firm, with private businesses hiring 534,000 new employees last month.

ADP’s National Employment Report found that the number of private sector jobs added between October and November exceeded an estimate from Dow Jones, which predicted 506,000 additional names on payrolls, according to CNBC.

Large businesses — a term that refers to groups with at least 500 employees — were responsible for the majority of the additional jobs, with those companies hiring 277,000 new employees, according to ADP.

Examined by industry, the leisure and hospitality companies saw the largest payroll expansion with 136,000 new jobs added. Professional and business services came in second with a 110,000 increase in employees.

Overall, the service-providing sector was responsible for 424,000 new jobs, according to ADP.

For the goods-producing sector, construction companies added 52,000 jobs and manufacturing firms saw a 50,000 employee increase on payrolls.

“The labor market recovery continued to power through its challenges last month,” Nela Richardson, the chief economist at ADP, said in a statement.

She said November’s numbers represent a “modest uptick from the job pace earlier this year,” but noted that it is too early to discern the effect the new omicron variant will have on the country’s jobs recovery.

“Job gains have eclipsed 15 million since the recovery began, though 5 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels. Service providers, which are more vulnerable to the pandemic, have dominated job gains this year. It’s too early to tell if the Omicron variant could potentially slow the jobs recovery in coming months,” Richardson added.

Private payrolls have expanded by an average of 543,000 jobs over the past three months and 491,000 throughout 2021, CNBC reported, citing statistics from the ADP.

In October, ADP found that private sector businesses added 571,000 workers.

The business channel noted, however, that ADP’s numbers can be substantially different from the Labor Department’s statistics.

According to the Labor Department’s monthly payrolls report, job growth has averaged 529,000 this year, CNBC reported. That number includes government jobs.