Employment in U. S. private sector grew much stronger than expected
2023.03.08 08:51
Employment in U. S. private sector grew much stronger than expected
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – Private payrolls in the United States went up more than expected in February, indicating that the labor market is still strong.
The ADP National Employment report showed on Wednesday that private employment increased by 242,000 jobs last month. The number of jobs added in January was revised up from 106,000 to 119,000, according to revised data. Reuters polled a group of economists and found that private employment would rise by 200,000.
Following a recent slew of encouraging economic data, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Tuesday that the U.S. central bank would likely need to raise interest rates more than anticipated and opened the door to a half-point rate increase this month to combat inflation.
The unemployment rate fell to a 53-1/2-year low of 3.4% in January, indicating robust job growth. In January, consumer spending experienced a significant rebound, and inflation increased.
The ADP report, which was created with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, was released before the more in-depth and highly anticipated employment report for February that was released on Friday by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the BLS employment report, it has not been a reliable gauge for forecasting private payrolls. In January, ADP reported that 106,000 private jobs were created, which is less than half of the 443,000 increase in private payrolls that the BLS predicted.
According to JPMorgan economist Daniel Silver, “more generally, in the several months since the ADP data started being released with a new methodology, the first prints have not reliably predicted the first prints of the related BLS data.” JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Economists surveyed by Reuters think that private payrolls likely added 213,000 jobs in February. After soaring 517,000 in January, total nonfarm payrolls are anticipated to rise by 203,000 jobs in February.
