Inside the ADP Report - May's job growth was...
Bottom Line: Just ok. According to the ADP private sector jobs report we added another 178,000 jobs in April. That was slightly below expectations and once you add in some negative revisions from prior months the report was mediocre at best. As of the April report we had a six-month streak of 200,000+ jobs being added per month. Not only is that streak broken but the revisions now say that we haven't added 200,000+ jobs in a month since February.
In context it appears as though employers are having a hard time finding the talent they're attempting to hire, not that the economy is weakening, in May we set an all-time high for job openings, instead the landscape appears to be highly favorable for this year's graduating class as they're entering the workforce. I'd suspect we're likely to see significantly higher numbers in future months through the summer.
As for where the jobs were added in May:
Small biz: +38k
Mid-Sized: +84k
Large: +56k
This is a bit of a disappointment as well. The hiring was especially strong for mid-sized companies and decent for larger ones, but small business hiring tailed off and that's where we want to see the most growth in hiring.
As for industries leading the pack...
Professional and business services: +61k
Construction: +39k
Education & Health +35k
Leisure & Hospitality: +33k
Manufacturing +14k
Where the real shortfall came with Trade Transportation & Utilities where we actually lost 23,000 jobs this month. After a string of good private sector jobs reports this one left something to be desired. Tomorrow we'll get the government report and we'll be able to put the whole ball of wax together.