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ADP Shows 749K Private-Sector Jobs for September

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

The month of September’s not even over yet, but Automatic Data Processing ADP is already out with its private-sector payroll report this morning. Results were better than expected, too — 749K new jobs in the private sector were created for the month, as opposed to roughly 600K estimated, and well higher than the upwardly revised 481K new private-sector jobs filled in August. Clearly, the Great Reopening is underway, albeit in dribs and drabs throughout the country.

Goods-producing jobs produced an admirable 196K on the month, while Services typically accounted for the lion’s share, 552K. By company size, large firms (more than 500 employees) brought in the most new private-sector jobs: 297K. Medium-sized companies (50-499 employees) brought in the second-most, at 259K and small firms, without the stock options and insurance incentives that larger companies often have, pulled up the rear.

Today is also the day New York City reopens its restaurants for indoor dining, which should provide more impetus for ADP reports in the near future. This is good, because even with a better-than-expected 749K figure for the month, it’s still notably lower than the 1.2 million new jobs gained on average since the month of May. After the abysmal March and April in job losses, by ADP’s own count we still see more than 13 million employees from the private sector out of work.

Fanning the flames this morning, Disney DIS has announced it will be cutting a quarter of its Parks workforce, or 28K employees. This will be a lot to absorb for future jobs numbers.

Speaking of the March and April abyss, a new revision to Q2 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) hit the tape ahead of the market open, as well, with a slight upward revision. What had been a read of -31.7% has now been adjusted to -31.4% — still the worst quarterly GDP figure in the 70 years of this report’s existence. Consumption fell 33.2% in the quarter, while the Pricing Index dropped 1.8%. The Core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) month over month came in at -0.8%.

Most analysts expect a big rebound in Q3 GDP numbers, which would erase most of this whopping total of GDP losses. Between the first two quarters of 2020, we’re tallying -36.4% in growth; even something extraordinary like a 30% rebound would still put us in historic recession territory. The good news here is those massive losses look to be a definite thing of the past. Now if we could only reopen the nation’s economy successfully, and responsibly…

Early morning losses in the pre-market have now moved into the green. While it may be hard to tie this to our two major economic reports this morning — the final day of calendar Q3, by the way — we may look at positive sentiment for another Covid vaccine and hopefulness for Congress to agree on a new relief bill as two late-breaking news items adding to the market’s appetite to buy.

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