① The ADP employment figures for the U.S. in December last year increased by 41,000, lower than the market consensus forecast; ② The latest data temporarily reversed the previous trend of continuously cooling employment numbers, with the previous figure revised up from -32,000 to -29,000; ③ This Friday, the market will welcome the first on-time release of the non-farm payroll report since the U.S. government shutdown.
Cailian Press, January 7 (Editor Shi Zhengzhi) On Wednesday evening Beijing time, payroll processing company ADP reported that the U.S. private sector added 41,000 jobs in December last year, lower than economists’ consensus expectation range of 48,000 to 50,000, indicating that the U.S. job market is entering 2026 with softening momentum.
ADP’s conclusions are based on the payrolls of over 26 million employees in U.S. private enterprises. Although the latest data itself still fell short of expectations, it slightly reversed the previous trend of net declines in employment numbers.
In the latest report, the ADP employment figures for November last year were revised up from -32,000 to -29,000. In the four months prior to the release of the December data, the ‘mini non-farm’ employment figures showed net reductions in three months.
(ADP Employment Figures, Source: tradingeconomics)
The increase in ADP employment in December almost entirely came from the service sector and small businesses with fewer than 500 employees.
Among these, the education and healthcare-related industries added 39,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality added 24,000, trade, transportation, and utilities added 11,000, and financial services added 6,000. The aforementioned growth was offset by declines in some sectors, with professional and business services losing 29,000 jobs, information services losing 12,000, and manufacturing employment falling by 5,000.
ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson summarized: “Small businesses, after experiencing a decline in employment in November, recovered as year-end hiring picked up; whereas large employers scaled back on hiring.”
The ADP report also showed that the annual salary growth rate for job changers in December rose to 6.6%, up from the previous value of 6.3%, which was the lowest since 2021; private sector employees staying in their current roles reported an annual salary increase of 4.4%, unchanged from the previous value.
Due to repeated deviations in ADP data over the past few years, the capital market is currently more focused on the official non-farm data due to be released on Friday. Affected by the record-breaking U.S. government shutdown at the end of last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data collection was once completely halted. Friday will also mark the first timely report release after the U.S. government resumed operations.
Economists surveyed expect that nonfarm payrolls increased by 73,000 in December, showing a slight improvement from the previous figure of 64,000, while the unemployment rate edged down to 4.5%.