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Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Private hiring slowed in April out of fear of tariff impacts. ‘Unease is the word of the day,' ADP chief economist says
Private-sector hiring slowed in April with payrolls increasing just 62,000, according to ADP's National Employment Report released Wednesday. This is much lower than expected and a far cry from the 147,000 job gains in March. An ADP economist said 'unease' about the economy is to blame for lower payrolls. It's not just the federal government that's struggling with employment numbers. Private-sector payrolls increased just 62,000 in April, down from 147,000 in March, according to ADP's monthly national employment report released Wednesday. Economic uncertainty related to tariffs likely led to the lower employment numbers for April, which saw the smallest gain since July 2024. However, annual pay was up 4.5% year-over-year, according to the report, which measured private-sector labor market employment from payroll data of more than 25 million U.S. employees. Still, that's a 0.1% drop from wage increases from March. 'Unease is the word of the day,' ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson said in a statement. 'Employers are trying to reconcile policy and consumer uncertainty with a run of mostly positive economic data. It can be difficult to make hiring decisions in such an environment." This is an even worse private employment report than economists had anticipated. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected hiring to slow less dramatically to 120,000 positions added in April. The slowdown in hiring could also be a sign of employers' fears of a recession. According to an April poll by Chief Executive, a whopping 62% of CEOs forecast a recession or slowdown in the next six months. Even Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, warned the U.S. could see something 'worse than a recession.' 'Right now, we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. I'm worried about something worse than a recession if this isn't handled well,' Dalio told NBC in April. 'We have something that's much more profound, we have a breaking down of the monetary order.' However, there's no universal measure for economic uncertainty and how companies are preparing for it. 'Businesses have learned from past recessions that if they're too aggressive in letting people go and making other permanent changes, those choices are very hard to reverse once the economy recovers," James Egelhof, chief US economist at BNP Paribas, told Yahoo Finance. Although private-sector hiring slowed significantly in April, there were still gains in the following industries: Natural resources/mining (6,000) Construction (16,000) Manufacturing (4,000) Trade/transportation/utilities (21,000) Financial activities (20,000) Leisure/hospitality (27,000) The industries with the highest median change in annual pay for workers who stayed in their jobs were financial activities (5.1%), construction (4.7%), education/health services (4.7%), and leisure/hospitality (4.7%). Meanwhile, 260,000 federal employees have lost their jobs, according to Reuters, due to cuts from the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unofficially run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Those job cuts have already shown signs of backfiring. DOGE's mass federal firings could cost taxpayers $135 billion this fiscal year, according to The Partnership of Public Service. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Epoch Times
29-04-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
US Job Openings Slide to 6-Month Low, Layoffs Fall
Job vacancies declined sharply in March, but little change in new hires and layoffs signals that the U.S. labor market remains solid. The number of job openings tumbled by 288,000, to 7.192 million, the lowest in six months, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Last month's number fell short of the consensus forecast of 7.48 million. Data indicate that the decrease in employment opportunities was broad-based, led by transportation, warehousing, and utilities (negative 59,000), accommodation and food services (negative 42,000), and construction (negative 38,000). Employment vacancies in the federal government also fell by 36,000. While the number of job openings has steadily declined since reaching the March 2022 peak of 12.1 million, other JOLTS metrics indicate the national labor market is intact. Related Stories 4/29/2025 4/28/2025 Job quits—a measure economists use to determine workers' confidence in finding a new position—increased by 82,000, to an eight-month high of 3.25 million. New hires were unchanged at 5.4 million, indicating employers are reluctant to expand their payrolls. Layoffs and discharges fell to 1.6 million, led by the retail trade (negative 66,000) and the federal government (negative 11,000). Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate, says the JOLTS report figures were compiled before President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff plans, so the latest labor dataset could suffer from a lagging effect. 'So, it runs the risk of being somewhat less meaningful given the level of volatility and uncertainty surrounding the economy,' Hamrick said in a statement to The Epoch Times. According to the latest Federal Reserve Meanwhile, 'It may be hard for a while but we need to do something before America goes bankrupt. This should have been done decades ago,' one small business owner said in the monthly survey. Other indicators, meanwhile, could present a snapshot of the broader U.S. labor market. Jobs, Layoffs, and Tariffs This week's main event will be the April jobs report on May 2. Economists anticipate the U.S. economy created 130,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent. 'We acknowledge the high degree of economic uncertainty heading into the forthcoming April employment report, and beyond,' Hamrick said. 'That's another way of saying that we shouldn't be shocked by a surprise in the data. Still, expectations are worth noting.' Market watchers will also monitor payroll processor ADP's National Employment Report. Early estimates suggest the private sector added 108,000 new jobs last month. Global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas will report on U.S.-based employers' planned job cuts. In March, employers announced 275,240 layoffs, the third-highest monthly total on record. The sizable figures were attributed to the Trump administration's plans to cut federal spending and downsize the government workforce. Meanwhile, jobless claims, a weekly gauge of the job market, have been stable. Last week, initial and continuing unemployment claims hovered around their 'The fact that unemployment has remained relatively low despite a significant decline in job openings is unprecedented,' said Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, in a In a separate Bureau of Labor Statistics Economic observers have expected seismic shifts in the U.S. labor market because of the new administration's cost-cutting efforts and policy changes, and these concerns have yet to appear in the hard data. Some say data in the coming months should present a clearer picture of how Trump's trade agenda is affecting the economic landscape. The first-quarter GDP growth rate will be released on April 30. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's GDPNow Model estimate, the U.S. economy contracted 1.5 percent after adjusting for gold imports and exports. Paul Ashworth, the chief North America economist at Capital Economics, says a spike in imports dragged down first-quarter growth, which could reverse in the current quarter. 'The reversal of that surge will have an offsetting effect in the second quarter, boosting growth to more than 2% annualised. Over the rest of 2025 and throughout 2026, however, we expect quarterly growth to slow to around 1.5% annualised,' Ashworth said in the Q2 2025 US Economic Outlook As the administration celebrates Trump's first 100 days in the Oval Office, Siebert Financial CIO Mark Malek says observing the next 100 days is crucial. 'For the most part, I think we've seen the worst. We've seen the extremes, in terms of the downside. I think markets now are having a much more positive bend on what's going to be happening in the next 100 days,' Malek said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.
Miami Herald
02-04-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
ADP jobs reports suggests little tariff impact on private sector hiring
The U.S. economy saw solid private-sector job creation last month, data indicated Wednesday, suggesting tariff uncertainty and the DOGE-lead overhaul of the federal workforce has yet weigh heavily on the overall labor market. Payroll-processing group ADP said around 155,000 jobs were created in the private sector last month, a sharp increase from the upwardly-revised tally of 115,000 in February. Economists had expected ADP's National Employment Report to show gains of around 118,000 as hiring steadied into the end of the first quarter. Investors are also likely to focus on wage and earnings details provided in the ADP release, which showed a slowing year-on-year increase of 4.6% for so-called job stayers. Those seeking new roles saw pay gains of 6.5%, the lowest wage premium for changing jobs in more than three years. "Despite policy uncertainty and downbeat consumers, the bottom line is this: The March topline number was a good one for the economy and employers of all sizes, if not necessarily all sectors," said ADP's chief economist Nela futures were little-changed in the wake of the ADP release, with the S&P 500 called 52 points lower and the Nasdaq set for an 225-point decline at the start of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is priced for a 300 point pullback. Related: There's no need for a trade war; America's already won it. By a lot. Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields held steady at 4.146% following the release, while 2-year notes were last pegged at 3.865% following their biggest two-day pullback of the year. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global currencies, was marked 0.17% lower 104.084. More Economic Analysis: Gold's price hit a speed bump; where does it go from here?7 takeaways from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's remarksRetail sales add new complication to Fed rate cut forecasts The CME Group's FedWatch pegs the odds of May rate cut at just 16.5%, but forecasts the first reduction of the year in June, with a follow-on move in September. The Labor Department will publish its benchmark March non-farm payrolls report Friday, with investors looking for a hiring gain of around 139,000, down from February's 151,000 tally, with the headline unemployment rate holding at 4.1%. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
CNN
05-03-2025
- Business
- CNN
American businesses are getting nervous about hiring more workers
The Trump administration's frenetic policy changes appear to be making US businesses think twice about hiring new workers. New data released Wednesday showed that hiring by US private-sector companies fell sharply last month, much more than economists had expected. Private-sector employment increased by an estimated 77,000 jobs in February, according to payroll giant ADP. That's a dramatic drop-off from the strong job growth of 186,000 seen in January and barely half the 142,500 net gain that economists had expected, according to FactSet estimates. 'Policy uncertainty and a slowdown in consumer spending might have led to layoffs or a slowdown in hiring last month,' Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP said in a statement. 'Our data, combined with other recent indicators, suggests a hiring hesitancy among employers as they assess the economic climate ahead.' Strong consumer spending, shored up by a solid labor market, has helped to power economic growth. However, in recent weeks, the all-mighty consumer was starting to show some apprehension. Consumer sentiment plummeted, inflation expectations went on the rise, and overall spending dropped for the first time in nearly two years. Consumers' confidence in the economy is reversing course at a time when the Trump administration has taken shock-and-awe policy approaches, including slapping massive tariffs on America's three biggest trading partners, taking a figurative chainsaw to the federal workforce and promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. The volatility, especially on matters such as trade, has fed in to increased business uncertainty: New data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Wednesday showed that surveyed businesses expect costs and inflation to move higher in 2025. ADP's National Employment Report showed the largest job losses in the service sector, particularly trade, transportation, and utilities (-33,000); education and health services (-28,000) and information (-14,000). The smallest of businesses (those with 19 or fewer employees) and those in the West and the South regions saw the biggest job losses, according to the report. Pay gains held steady at 4.7% for workers who stayed with their employer and eased slightly to 6.7% from 6.8% for people who changed jobs. ADP's tabulations don't always correlate with the official federal jobs report, but it's sometimes looked to as a proxy for overall hiring activity. The February jobs report is due out Friday, and economists are expecting a net gain of about 160,000 jobs.
