ADP said the private sector shed 84k jobs in Dec, 9k above expectations but still a continued improvement and the smallest rate of decline since March ’08. Nov was revised up by 24k to a loss of 145k. The Dec jobs decline was led solely by the goods producing sector as it lost 96k with manufacturing making up 43k of the job loss. Construction shed 52k jobs and has now lost 1.77mm since the top in Jan ’07. The service sector added 12k jobs, led by small and medium sized businesses. Large co’s cut 9k jobs in the service sector. Specifically in the financial services area, job losses totaled 12k. Bottom line, expectations are rising that we will see a positive print on Friday (includes the public sector) and today’s weaker than expected figure won’t sway that belief because of the modest deviation from expectations and the disconnect between ADP and the Government Payroll figure on a month to month basis.
