Three-month average job creation dips into negative for the first time since 2020, per ADP data.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
According to ADP today, based on data from companies whose payroll it processes, the private sector lost 31,000 jobs in November. But it revised up its October job-creation figure to 47,000 additional jobs, from 42,000 originally reported.
The declines in August and September were due to the 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 were not related to employment in August and September, but to employment through March 2025. The annual adjustment had turned the small growth in September (+11,000) into a job loss (-29,000). And it had turned the job growth in August (+54,000) into a job loss (-3,000).
Those adjustments would not be a big deal in a job market with lots of employment growth and would get lost in the month-to-month squiggles. But employment growth has been weak in recent months. And so these adjustments knocked those two months into the negative. The three-month average (blue line in the chart) turned negative for the first time since August 2020.
Total private-sector payrolls declined to 134.55 million in November, from the record in October. Compared to a year ago, total payrolls were by 747,000.
The chart of private-sector employment shows the trend: Job growth continued in 2025, and the number of jobs rose to a record in October, but that growth was slower than in prior years.
- Year-to-date 2025, jobs added: 571,000
- Same period in 2024, jobs added: 1.46 million.
Median wages increased year-over-year for:
- “Job Stayers”: +4.4%, compared to +4.7% a year ago. Since April, year-over-year increases have been +4.4% or +4.5%.
- “Job Changers”: +6.3%, compared to +6.8% a year ago and down from +7.1% over the summer.
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.
Employment by category:
Total payrolls by major industry in millions, month-to-month change (MoM) and year-over-year change (YoY).
Enjoy the month-to-month changes with a grain of salt. They’re just up-and-down squiggles in the data. Look at the charts to see the trend.
Construction:
- Total jobs: 8.36 million
- MoM: -9,000
- YoY: +109,000
Education and health services:
- Total jobs: 25.76 million
- MoM: +33,000
- YoY: +20,000
Trade, transportation, and utilities:
- Total jobs: 29.90 million
- MoM: +1,000
- YoY: +127,000
Financial activities:
- Total jobs: 8.96 million
- MoM: -9,000
- YoY: +146,000
Information – effects of AI?
- Total jobs: 2.92 million
- MoM: -20,000
- YoY: -25,000
Leisure and hospitality:
- Total jobs: 17.62 million
- MoM: +13,000
- YoY: +305,000
Manufacturing:
- Total jobs: 12.78 million
- MoM: -18,000
- YoY: +7,000
Natural resources and mining (incl. oil & gas):
- Total jobs: 1.86 million
- MoM: +8,000
- YoY: +51,000
Professional and business services:
- Total jobs: 22.61 million
- MoM: -26,000
- YoY: +11,000
Other services:
- Total jobs: 4.79 million
- MoM: -4,000
- YoY: +20,000
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Interesting that median wage increases for both stayers and changers seem to be beating inflation.
I’m in a sector with rare raises, so seeing the median wage change for job stayers always hurts a bit.
They’ve been beating inflation for a couple of years. But during the big inflation spike (2021 through mid-2022), they both fell behind and it took a while of big wage increases for both to catch back up.
This is why people are so pissed off about inflation: they got big wage increases, which made them feel good for about two seconds, and then they realized that they’re just catching up with price increases, which pissed them off.
There is also the split between older workers late in their career who get smaller if any wage increases, and younger workers early in their careers who move from job to job and get bigger wage increases. Some of the older workers never got enough wage increases to catch back up, and other job opportunities are limited or non-existent for them (due to agism). It always plays out like that. Maybe it used to be even worse some decades ago.
I retired from the open pit mining industry,
Our plant pumped out 700 tph.
Base rock, Sand, Crushed rock and Contrete aggregate.
Durying slow times We kept plugging along building up Our stockpiles.
Our customers were State, Federal and private sectors.
It was a pretty good recession proof industry.