ADP Employment Report: +42,000 Jobs in October; wages +4.5% for “Job Stayers” and +6.7% for “Job Changers.”
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
According to payroll processing firm ADP, the private sector created 42,000 jobs in October, after two months of declines.
But the two prior months, so employment in September and August, had gotten hammered by the massive annual adjustment for the 12-month period through March 2025, to benchmark ADP’s data to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in September. These adjustments had nothing to do with employment in August and September, but with employment through March 2025.
The annual adjustment had turned the small growth in September of 11,000 into a job loss of 32,000 – which today was re-revised to -29,000. And it had turned the job growth in August of +54,000 into a job loss of -3,000.
Total employment in the private sector rose to 134.57 million, up by 977,000 jobs from a year ago.
The chart of private-sector employment shows the trend: Job growth continued in 2025 but at a much slower pace than in prior years.
- Year-to-date 2025, jobs added: 597,000
- Same period in 2024, jobs added: 1.33 million.
Median wages increased year-over-year for:
- “Job Stayers”: +4.5%, roughly the same yoy increase for the seventh month in a row.
- “Job Changers”: +6.7%, same yoy increase as in the prior month, but less the increases of 7.0% to 7.1% in the mid-year period.
The wage data from ADP is based on a subset of 14.8 million workers employed for at least 12 months, whose paychecks ADP processed.
Due to the government shutdown, the BLS will not release its employment report this Friday, and the ADP data here, plus unemployment insurance claims data released by the 50 states individually, and some private-sector tidbits are all we get for now in terms of payroll count and wages for October.
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More jobs, higher inflation. Combined with less access to federal government data, macro signals should point to no rate cut by the Fed in December. I know it’s fantasy to wish for a Fed backpedal and rate hike, but that is my Christmas wish.
Keep stocking the pantry.
209,and rotate/use older stock and replenish.
You can see the top of your closet,you need more hunting supplies.
I think it is important to track what type of jobs are being created and destroyed (like the birth-death number for the creation/closing of businesses).
Many on Wolf’s forum doubt AI, but it is my humble belief that AI in the next decade will advance to the point that securing and holding a job will be a major feat.
When we get the number of jobs in each category (once the government reopens), will may be able to draw some conclusions as to whether AI is impacting yet.
AI (Atrocious Idiocy) has nothing of value to offer to anyone at all.
Every single Waymo that drives around (there are more and more of them in a bunch of cities now) takes the jobs of 2-3 full-time drivers. The Waymos are amazingly good now. And they’re still just experimental prototype retrofitted vehicles. This technology is going to spread to everywhere. There are over 200,000 taxi/Uber drivers in the US. They need to find another job over the next few years. There are a bunch more other types of drivers, and their days are numbered too, though they have a little longer, it seems.
However, Waymo employs lots of people in tech and other areas, as do automakers that are also all over this tech. But drivers who lost their jobs might not be able to fill the roles at these companies. So there is going to be a lot of tech-driven hardship for some people.
“think it is important to track what type of jobs are being created and destroyed”
This is very important – something I’ve been saying for 2 years…
But we don’t need AI – the BLS gives a monthly running estimate broken down into 10-12 broad industry/occupation groups…and generates data for over 800 occupations every May or so (with an ugly lag of 12-16 months).
Scary spoiler? For 2+ years government subsidized jobs (government and medical) have made up a very disproportionate pct of the new jobs added.
But government subsidized jobs very likely cannot bootstrap overall employment growth into existence long term – if taxing government paid/subsidized workers were some sort of perpetual motion machine for macro health, the USSR would have thrived and DC would have already created 5 times the number of phoney baloney jobs it has.
Keynesian perpetual motion aside, there has to be organic, private sector growth for the whole machine to, er…work.
Cas127
1. “For 2+ years government subsidized jobs (government and medical) have made up a very disproportionate pct of the new jobs added.”
1a. Government: Jobs at the federal government and at state governments have plunged in 2025. I discussed this a bunch of times, including charts, all you have to do is read it. So READ IT NOW, including:
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/10/04/jobs-report-to-get-hit-by-100000-federal-government-deferred-resignations-on-top-of-the-jobs-already-shed-but-ice-is-hiring/
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/09/05/my-thoughts-about-that-august-jobs-report/
1b. “government subsidized jobs” such as “Medical”: Sorry, jobs in “medical” (ADP category is “Education and health services”) is essentially flat YoY.
But:
— construction: +1.8% yoy
— financial activities: +1.9% yoy
— leisure & hospitality: +2.4% yoy
— natural resources & mining (oil& gas drilling): +2.7% yoy
2. “the BLS gives a monthly running estimate broken down into 10-12 broad industry/occupation groups…”
Yes, and it’s right here on this site, including charts for each category, all you have to do is read it, but you REFUSE to read the articles here. So READ THIS NOW:
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/07/03/beneath-the-surface-of-the-employment-report-how-jobs-evolved-by-industry-over-time-winners-losers/
You also have to remember that technology can reduce the credentials/skills needed to do a task.
Way,o is Geofenced in cities where they have mapped all the streets. I believe when Tesla finally solves FSD, which is not too far away, their Robotaxis can drive anyware..
Yesterday on my way to work in downtown San Jose in my non-FSD vehicle, I saw a Tesla model 3 that had attempted to make a left turn across the center island of Almaden Blvd and knocked over two large concrete bollards. Apparently FSD is just on the other side of those bollards. But no cats were harmed.