Private payrolls plunged in September, complicating the picture for the US economy as policymakers and investors struggle to assess the state of the labor market amid a government shutdown.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is unlikely to release the monthly jobs report this Friday due to the closure. That means many flying blind without critical economic data are having to key into any information they can get, including Wednesday’s private sector jobs data from payroll company ADP.
US private-sector businesses lost 32,000 jobs in September, according to the report. August’s previously estimated 54,000 payroll gains were downwardly revised to negative 3,000.
Small private-sector businesses drove last month’s decline, and losses were widespread across industries (with some of the largest losses being in professional and business services and leisure and hospitality), ADP reported. The bulk of the hiring occurred at health care businesses.
However, ADP’s latest numbers come with some qualifications: A preliminary “rebenchmarking” of the data was a significant factor behind the negative August revision and September’s estimated job losses, ADP’s chief economist Nela Richardson said Wednesday.
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