A sobering reality for small businesses: November saw a sharp pullback in jobs, despite overall private employment shedding 32,000 positions according to ADP. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had anticipated an uptick of about 40,000, making the report a meaningful miss.
ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, called November’s numbers a broad-based slowdown, with the smallest firms taking the brunt. Companies with fewer than 50 employees led the decline, cutting 120,000 jobs. While hiring slowed across medium and large employers, those sectors still posted net gains.
Richardson emphasized that the net increase in hiring could have occurred if not for the hesitancy spreading through small, family-run businesses and other mom-and-pop operations navigating an uncertain macro environment and cautious consumer demand.
Industry-wise, professional and business services, manufacturing, and information services bore the heaviest losses in November. A rare bright spot came from the natural resources and mining sector, which added 8,000 jobs. Richardson suggested this uptick may be linked to substantial infrastructure investments in data centers that are energy-intensive, driven by ongoing spending by tech and AI firms on cloud-computing facilities.
The release arrives as the government shutdown’s data blackout begins to lift, though the next government jobs report isn’t due until December 18. ADP’s numbers are likely to fuel ongoing concerns about the labor market, especially since recent federal reports have shown a fragile employment picture.
To place it in context, the trajectory over recent months has been uneven: June saw a loss of 13,000 jobs, July added 72,000, August shed 4,000, and September posted a robust gain of 119,000. ADP’s monthly private payrolls data have shown similar volatility, contracting in four of the last six releases. Richardson also noted a cooling in wage growth alongside the hiring slowdown: year-over-year pay for job holders edged up 4.4%, down from 4.5% in October.
The delay in government data due to the shutdown means the Federal Reserve will not see October’s jobs or inflation figures, since survey staffing was disrupted. Likewise, November’s employment and inflation data won’t reach policymakers until after the December 9–10 Federal Reserve meeting.
ADP’s report provides a snapshot of private-sector employment but excludes federal, state, and local government workers, and economists often view it as only loosely aligned with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) official payroll report. Steve Kopack, NBC News senior business and economy correspondent, provides context on how these figures fit into the wider data landscape.
