Thursday, June 2, 2016
This morning’s Automatic Data Processing, or ADP ADP, results for May has come out slightly ahead of expectations at 173K private sector jobs for the month. April’s total was revised upward 10K to 166K. This looks to continue the “plod-along” economy we’ve grown accustomed to these past few years. And the number also appears to be good enough to erase another layer of doubt whether the Fed will raise interest rates this month.
Digging into the numbers a bit, Professional/Business Services grew the most at 43K in May. Trade/Transportation/Utilities added 28K, Construction 13K and Financial Activities 13K. These numbers are slightly offset by a loss of 3,000 jobs in Manufacturing. Goods were down 1,000 but Services up 175K; non-farm jobs hit 158K.
Small businesses (under 50 employees) grew the most with 76K new jobs in May. Medium-sized companies (50-499 employees) brought in 63K jobs for the month, and Large businesses (500+) brought up the rear once again with 34K new jobs. These numbers would suggest we are seeing a bottom in Manufacturing employment — not that we expect a big bounce over the coming months, but Manufacturing appears to have been cut to the bone at this stage.
What we’re not seeing from these results are the big cut in jobs at Verizon VZ following the settling of its major labor strike last week, which should bring down these totals another 25K or so. These ought to be accounted for in tomorrow’s Non-farm Payroll Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), meaning that although the BLS totals will include government jobs the ADP report does not, it’s quite possible the total number may fall short of this morning’s result. Even if it does, however, we don’t see numbers like these flipping Janet Yellen’s “off” switch.
We also saw weekly Jobless Claims reach 267K, down 1,000 from last week’s non-revised totals. Continuing claims rose a tad from 2.16 million to 2.17 million. Again, we are hovering in a range of acceptability here: nobody is jumping for joy they way they would be if jobless claims dipped beneath 250K (and stayed there), but neither should anyone need to be talked off the ledge.
Futures for the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq are all down slightly prior to Thursday’s open. It’s a wait-and-see week with plenty of things to digest. So far, everything seems to have gone down OK.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
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