Today’s pre-market trading is mixed/flat at this hour, directly following the first report for “Jobs Week”: December private-sector payrolls from Automated Data Processing ADP are out this morning, slightly below estimates but rebounding to a positive print. Private-sector payrolls hit +41K last month, -7K from consensus and nicely up from the prior month’s upwardly revised -29K.
This is the highest monthly ADP jobs report since July’s +104K, but that’s not really saying a whole lot. The past six months of ADP jobs numbers, half of which were negative tallies, have only averaged +27K new private-sector hires per month. Contrast this with the previous six months, which produced an average +122K new jobs in the private sector.
Goods-producing jobs were still underwater in today’s ADP report, -3K, but the good news here is that we’re seeing these losses narrow. Services gained +44K positions in the private sector last month, with a welcome rebound in small-business hiring. Medium-sized firms (50-499 employees) led the way with +34K new hires, followed by +9K from small companies and +2K at large corporations.
Education/Healthcare led the way with +39K new positions filled, followed by Leisure/Hospitality at +24K and Trade/Transportation/Utilities +11K. These are often among the sector leaders each month, with one notable exception: Professional/Business Services shed -29K positions in the private sector in December. Some of this may be due to seasonal realities and will likely shift back toward “normal” levels over time.
Unique to ADP is the average wage gains for those remaining in their current jobs and those switching employers, and here we’ve never seen a tighter margin: +4.4% for Job Stayers and +4.6% for Job Changers. This indicates a very tight labor market, at least among private businesses (although we don’t expect much relief from government jobs in pending employment reports this week); normally, Job Changers could expect a notable increase in wages. Not so now.
What to Expect from Today’s Stock Market
Jobs Week continues after today’s opening bell, when November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) are expected to come in roughly even with the prior two months at 7.6 million job openings. This is back to the median over the past couple years, and off the 7.2 million prints we were seeing last summer. Job Quits, in the October report, sank to levels not seen since peak Covid: +1.8%. This illustrates an uncommonly high level of job insecurity among the American labor force.
Elsewhere, ISM Services for December are expected to tick down 40 basis points (bps) month over month to 52.2% — still comfortably above the 50% level which indicates economic growth. Contrast this with ISM Manufacturing for December, out earlier this week, dwindled to 47.9% from 48.3% expected — notably below that 50% level, indicating economic erosion.
Finally, Factory Orders for October (delayed due to the long federal government shutdown last fall) will hit the tape later this morning. Estimates are for a negative -1.2% headline, swinging from +0.2% positive in September. Looking back to ADP’s Goods-producing jobs and the ISM Manufacturing numbers, this would be consistent with a weakening non-Services employment environment.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
Zacks Investment Research
