First Look at March: ADP Says 129K New Nonfarm Private Jobs

The economic mover and shaker this week is Friday's employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This monthly report contains a wealth of data for economists, the most publicized being the month-over-month change in Total Nonfarm Employment (the PAYEMS series in the FRED repository). Today we have the ADP March estimate of 129K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over the ADP revised February figure of 197K.

The 129K estimate came in below the Investing.com consensus of 184K for the ADP number.

The Investing.com forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is for 170K new nonfarm private jobs and the unemployment rate to drop to 3.9%. Their forecast for the March full nonfarm new jobs is (the PAYEMS number) 180K.

Here is an excerpt from today's ADP report press release:

“March posted the slowest employment increase in 18 months,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Although some service sectors showed continued strength, we saw weakness in the goods producing sector.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “The job market is weakening, with employment gains slowing significantly across most industries and company sizes. Businesses are hiring cautiously as the economy is struggling with fading fiscal stimulus, the trade uncertainty, and the lagged impact of Fed tightening. If employment growth weakens much further, unemployment will begin to rise."

Here is a visualization of the two series over the previous twelve months.