ADP said private sector job gains in Nov were 93k, 23k above expectations and Oct was revised higher by 39k to 82k. Averaging the two months together has them at the best level since late ’07. Both the goods producing and service providing sectors added jobs. Manufacturing in particular added 16k jobs, more than offsetting the decline of just 3k in construction, the smallest drop since June ’07. Most of the job gains in both services and goods producing were from small and medium sized businesses. This data comes of course days before the Gov’t payroll figure which is expected to total 145k and there is little question that there is an improvement in the labor market but it still remains uncertain of when it reaches the level high enough to start lowering the unemployment rate, thus absorbing the increases the labor force. The direction though is certainly encouraging.
