Publisher’s Note: ADP is a major employer in Augusta and has represented more than 26 million employees through payroll and HR-type services since 2010. Today, Dr. Simon Medcalfe utilizes their numbers as an alternative to Uncle Sam.
Although the continued government shutdown has restricted timely economic data releases, there is still economic data to be found from other sources.
The latest ADP report indicated that private employment fell by 32,000 in September (we do not have the official government data for September). This was on top of a smaller 3,000 job loss in August. On Tuesday last week, ADP started releasing a preliminary weekly jobs report. It showed that the private sector created 14,250 jobs per week over the previous four weeks.
ADP data is not available at the metro or county level but is split up by region, industry, and establishment size. Georgia and South Carolina are in the South Atlantic census region, and employment in the region increased by 5,000.
Nationally, employment growth was seen in education and health services (up 33,000), information (+3,000), and natural resources and mining (+4,000). All other industries lost jobs in September, with big losses in leisure and hospitality (down 19,000), other services (-16,000), and professional and business services (-13,000). Large establishments nationwide, with over 500 employees, increased their payroll in September, but all other establishments shed jobs.
ADP also releases data on pay gains. Workers who remained in the same job as last year saw pay gains of 4.5%, with all industry sectors showing pay gains. Workers who changed jobs saw slightly larger pay gains at 6.6%. Pay gains in Georgia were 4.4% and 3.9% in South Carolina. Females saw larger annual pay gains (4.6%) compared to males (4.3%), and younger workers (age 16-24) saw larger wage gains than older workers.
As I mentioned two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve System is continuing to operate. The Chicago Fed uses real-time private sector data to provide estimates of the unemployment rate. They estimate that the October unemployment rate will be 4.35%, up from 4.34% in September. The last official unemployment rate released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was 4.3% for August.
The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee decided last Wednesday to cut the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points to 3.75% to 4%, the lowest in 3 years, on the back of weaker job market data. However, the lack of government economic data makes for a more complicated decision at their next meeting in December.
The next ADP monthly report is due November 5th, and the second weekly report will be available November 11th.
