U.S. private employers in April added the most jobs in seven months, according to data from the ADP Research Institute released today. Company payrolls rose by 743,000 in the month. That’s a big gain from the upwardly revised 565,000 gain in March. And it’s the biggest money gain in jobs in seven months.
That increases worries that Friday’s April jobs report from the Commerce Department will show a gain for the month of nearly 1 million new jobs. Good news for workers, of course, but that would increase fears in the financial markets that we’re seeing the kind of sustained gains in jobs that the Federal Reserve has said it needs to see before it begins to raise interest rates.
On the other hand, economists surveyed by Bloomberg had been looking for a gain of 850,000 jobs in the ADP survey. So there is still some chance of a “Goldilocks” jobs report on Friday with the economy adding enough jobs to indicate that the recovery from the pandemic recession continues but not so many that investors need to ramp up fears of inflation and higher interest rates. A gain of 700,000 to 800,000 for the month, weaker than the forecasts from economists of nearly 1 million jobs, would probably be “just right.”
All but one industry tracked in the ADP survey saw job gains. The biggest gains came in the leisure and hospitality sectors which added 237,000 jobs.
The ADP survey tracks companies employing 26 million workers. And the results from this survey don’t always correspond to those from the more extensive survey from the Commerce Department.
Today, May 5, the price of the 10-year Treasury bond rose–a sign of easing inflation fears–and the yield dropped to 1.57%, down 2 basis points today and down 13 basis points in the last month.
