Labor market expanded payrolls in January, ADP report says

Private sector employment was up by more than 290,000 jobs between December and January, according to the January ADP National Employment Report by Roseland-based ADP.

The payroll and human resources company said in a news release that the month saw a 291,000-job uptick in nonfarm private employment.

“The labor market experienced expanded payrolls in January,” Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said.

By company size, medium businesses with 50 to 499 employees added 128,000 new roles, small businesses with less than 50 employees added 94,000, and large businesses with more than 500 employees added 69,000.

“Mild winter weather provided a significant boost to the January employment gain. The leisure and hospitality and construction industries in particular experienced an outsized increase in jobs. Abstracting from the vagaries of the data underlying job growth is close to 125,000 per month, which is consistent with low and stable unemployment,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said.

It was a positive month for both the goods-producing and the service-providing sectors, which grew by 54,000 and 237,000 jobs, respectively. Among industries, leisure/hospitality added 96,000 new roles followed by education/health services adding 70,000; professional/business services, 49,000; construction, 47,000; manufacturing, 10,000; other services, 10,000; trade/transportation/utilities, 8,000; information, 2,000; financial activities, 2,000; and natural resources/mining, -2,000.

“Goods producers added jobs, particularly in construction and manufacturing, while service providers experienced a large gain, led by leisure and hospitality. Job creation was strong among midsized companies, though small companies enjoyed the strongest performance in the last 18 months,” Yildirmaz said.