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U.S. gained 189,000 jobs in November, ADP saysBy Greg Robb, MarketWatch
Last update: 9:07 a.m. EST Dec. 5, 2007Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. private-sector employment rose by 189,000 in November, according to the ADP employment report released Wednesday.
The report suggest the labor market remains a source of strength as the economy weakens in the fourth quarter,
A strong job market may make some analyst rethink their projections that the Federal Reserve will aggressively cut short-term interest rates by a half a percentage point next week.
The ADP report's results are well above projections of Wall Street economists for the government nonfarm payrolls survey to be released on Friday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are expecting payrolls - both public-and private-sector - to grow by about 60,000 for November. See Economic Calendar.
The ADP report's considered by some to be the best single predictor of the government's nonfarm payroll report.
Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomics Advisers, the economic firm that computes the ADP index from anonymous payroll data supplied by Automatic Data Processing Inc., said seasonal hiring may have been stronger than analysts were
Prakken said that Wall Street economists are too pessimistic given all the discussion of the turmoil in subprime mortgage market and financial meltdown.
"Employment is a lagging indicator of GDP. We've just come off two very strong quarters of GDP," Prakken said in an interview on CNBC television.
Prakken said the data was adjusted for a five-week period but there were no other statistical quirks.
Adding an estimated 25,000 or so additional government jobs that aren't included in the ADP index, the ADP report suggests nonfarm payrolls likely rose by about 214,000 in November.
The ADP sample's taken during the same week of the month as the government survey, using similar techniques on anonymous sample data compiled from about 307,000 business sites covering about 17 million workers. Roseland, N.J.-based ADP (ADP:Automatic Data Processing, Inc
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Last: 44.93-0.30-0.66%
4:00pm 12/04/2007
ADP 44.93, -0.30, -0.7%) provides payroll and human-resources services to about one of every six U.S. workers, at more than 500,000 companies.
According to the report, the service sector produced all of the jobs in November, adding 197,000 jobs. Employment in the goods producing sector fell by 8,000. Manufacturing jobs declined a slim 5,000.
The ADP has averaged 123,000 jobs created in the last three months, stronger than 43,000 in the period from July-Septemnber.
