Jobs

March ADP Payrolls Losses Show Only the Start of the Unemployment Carnage

Jon C. Ogg

Published: April 1, 2020 9:49 am

Last Updated: April 1, 2020 10:13 am

Ahead of each month’s unemployment and payrolls report from the U.S. Department of Labor, there is the ADP National Employment Report. This acts as an indicator for direction more than as a directly correlated number. ADP also predicated that the March data were only through March 12 and did not reflect the full impact of the COVID-19 carnage that was seen in the latter two weeks of March.

Total nonfarm private sector payrolls were down only 27,000 in ADP’s report for March. While that does not reflect the more than 3 million weekly jobless claims report already seen, it was already showing cracks in the employment picture. Small businesses lost 90,000 payrolls. There was a gain of 7,000 payrolls in mid-sized businesses with 50 to 499 employees and there was a gain of 56,000 payrolls in the large companies with 500 or more employees.

The February total of payrolls added was revised down to 179,000 from 183,000.

The goods-producing sector lost 9,000 jobs and the services-providing sector lost 18,000 jobs. There were 44,000 additional payrolls added in the health services and education, but 44,000 of those gains were from the health sector. There were 37,000 jobs lost through March 12 tied to the trade, transportation and utilities group, as well as 11,000 losses in leisure and hospitality. Construction lost 16,000 payrolls.

The matched sample used for ADP’s March payrolls report was taken from ADP payroll data covering 460,000 U.S. clients who employ nearly 26 million U.S. workers.

Last week’s report showing nearly 3.3 million jobless claims is expected to be followed by another ghastly report this Thursday, and all of that is ahead of the Labor Department’s employment situation showing unemployment and nonfarm payrolls on Friday. None of the live reports of this sort are expected to look good for the foreseeable future.