Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Survey: Firms add 177,000 jobs
Figure for April weakest in 6 months; analysts unworried
WASHINGTON — U.S. businesses added 177,000 jobs last month, a private survey found, a solid gain that suggests the economy continues to expand despite recent signs of slower growth.
April’s hiring is down from a revised 255,000 in the previous month, the ADP Research Group said Wednesday. Last month’s figure is the lowest in six months and comes after three strong gains in ADP’s data.
“Despite a dip in job creation, the growth is more than strong enough to accommodate the growing population as the labor market nears full employment,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Looking across company sizes, midsized businesses showed persistent growth for the past six months.”
The ADP figure covers only businesses and doesn’t include government payrolls. It often diverges from federal data. Last month, the government said employers added only 98,000 jobs in March, far below the robust hiring in ADP’s report. ADP, a human resources management company, is based in Roseland, N.J.
The report’s release comes after other recent signs the economy has slowed. Growth was just 0.7 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter, and auto sales slumped last month.
The data gave the Federal Reserve more information in its discussions on the labor market Wednesday as it
closed out a two-day meeting in Washington. A stronger labor market is pushing central bankers to proceed with further interest-rate increases this year as they also work to pare the Fed’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet.
According to the ADP report, most of the hiring was in services businesses, such as health care, restaurants, hotels, and shipping. Manufacturing added 11,000 jobs, a modest gain, while construction firms cut 2,000 positions.
Construction hiring accelerated in the first two months of the year, when temperatures were warmer than usual, and has leveled off since then. Construction employment in Arkansas was little changed in March compared with March 2016, according to an analysis of federal employment data by the Associated General Contractors of
America, the trade association for the U.S. construction industry.
Statewide, construction accounted for 49,100 jobs in March, compared with the 49,200 jobs the industry counted in March a year ago.
ADP’s report is in line with economists’ forecast for the government’s jobs report, which will be released Friday. That report will likely show that employers added 185,000 jobs in April and that the unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent from 4.5 percent, economists say.
While the ADP report showed hiring fell to a sixmonth low, most economists weren’t concerned. Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, a consulting firm, said April’s job gains are enough to lower the unemployment rate over time.