The U.S. economy added 147,000 private, non-farm jobs in October, according to the monthly employment report released this morning by payroll-management firm ADP and its partner Moody's Analytics. The seasonally adjusted result marks a 27 percent drop from September's upward-revised 202,000 jobs, and a 21 percent drop from the 185,000 addition as of October 2015.
About 23 percent (34,000) of the payroll additions in October took place at businesses with fewer than 50 employees, a figure roughly on par with September. Within that figure, firms employing fewer than 20 individuals accounted for less than half (14,000) of those additions.
"Job growth has slowed a bit over the past year ... but 150,000 is still a very good, solid number, well above the rate job growth needed to absorb the growth of working age population." Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said in a conference call this morning.
The slowing in job market could be attributed to slumps in the energy and construction sector in the past a few months, Zandi said. While residential construction remains quite stable, public construction and private, nonresidential construction have been on the soft side for months, weighing down the construction job market.
Following the previous month's growth, construction employment went back to shed 15,000 jobs in October, the second loss in three months. Manufacturing lost 1,000 positions, after gaining 3,000 in September. Professional and business services sector—which includes architecture and engineering firms—created 69,000 new payroll positions in October.
The month of October marks a respecified ADP employment model, which is upgraded to further close up the job report gaps between ADP and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the first time, the ADP report includes employment information for additional industries, including financial services, education, healthcare, and transportation.
For more information, read the full employment report from ADP.
