ADP said the private sector added 201k jobs in March, the 3rd month in the past 4 above 200k. It was though slightly below expectations of 208k and Feb was revised down by 9k. Gains were again led by small and medium sized businesses in both goods producing and service providing sectors. Manufacturing specifically added 37k jobs and the financial sector grew by 4k jobs. Construction suffered another lost 5k jobs and the decline from the top is now 2.126mm. Bottom line, while slightly below estimates, the pace of job gains is good and certainly encouraging to see but we still have years to go to get back what was lost in the recession if this current pace persists. Friday’s Gov’t Payroll report is expected to show a gain of 190k, 210k of which is in the private sector, with an unemployment rate of 8.9%.
