The ADP employment report showed that employers reduced their payroll numbers by 371,000 jobs. The report was expected to show that the private sector shed 350,000 jobs in July.
A Bloomberg survey of economists indicates they expect Friday’s unemployment report to show a 9.6% unemployment rate and another 328,000 jobs cut in July.
The ADP National Employment Report® is a measure of nonfarm private employment, based on a subset of aggregated and anonymous payroll data that represents approximately 400,000 of ADP’s 500,000 U.S. business clients. The release for March begins as follows:
Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 8:15 A.M. ET
Nonfarm private employment decreased 742,000 from February to March 2009 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report®. The estimated change of employment from January to February was revised down by 9,000, from a decline of 697,000 to a decline of 706,000.
FT reports the ADP number for this month is foreboding for the Friday non-farm payrolls number:
“The ADP survey sent ripples of concern through markets on Wednesday that the US government’s monthly jobs data – seen as one of the most important indicators of the US economy’s health – would also be dire when released on Friday.
“It’s a terrible number. It is almost a loss of three quarters of a million jobs which is possibly the highest we have seen so far over the length of this crisis. Obviously [it is] foreboding ahead of [Friday’s] non-farm payrolls report,” said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader at Tempus Consulting.”
