U.S. private payrolls grew by 807,000 in December, according to ADP Research Institute today. That’s the most jobs added in a month in seven months. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected an increase of 410,000.
Financial market reaction has been modest today with the yield on the 10-year Treasury rising 2 basis points, as of noon New York time, to 1.67%. That’s an increase of 32 basis points in the last month. (Just as a reminder bond prices fall as yields rise.)
From the point of view of the financial markets, a strong jobs market is good news–growth is holding up in the U.S economy–and bad news–rising wages will feed into higher inflation.
As has been true for a while now the biggest job gains came in the service sector jobs where payrolls rose by 669,000 in December. Gains were led by leisure and hospitality. Payrolls at goods producers increase by 138,000.
The big question, of course, is what effect the current surge in infections from the Omicron Variant will have on employment in January and beyond. Data now indicate that the Omicron surge will peak in January.
This afternoon the Federal Reserve releases minutes from its December meeting. Wall Street will be looking for clues on how aggressive the central bank will be on raising interest rates in 2022.
Friday brings the monthly jobs report for December from the Labor Department. Economists are currently looking for the economy to have added 384,000 private payroll jobs in December. Recent trends in public sector jobs have pointed downward. The ADP data doesn’t track very closely with the Labor Department numbers since the two surveys use different methodologies.
