Like the Bureau of Labor Affairs, ADP revises its monthly reports, sometimes sharply,
in subsequent months. For instance, it originally reported 175,000 private-sector
jobs were created in January and 238,000 in December.
Automatic Data Processing's
report Friday that 139,000 new private-sector jobs were created in February isn't a good gauge of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics will report Friday. The consensus of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News is for BLS to report 150,000 private- and public-sector jobs were created, when seasonally adjusted. But the consensus is off the mark more often than not, way off much of the time.
Differences between BLS and ADP—in one direction or the other—are not unusual, although both subsequently revise the original reports in ways that bring their numbers closer together. For December, ADP, a giant in the payroll services business, reported 238,000 new private-sector jobs had been created; BLS reported 74,000. Last month, ADP said the economy had created a 175,000 new private-sector jobs. That was far above the 113,000 private- and public-sector jobs the BLS reported two days later.
If the BLS numbers again come in considerably lower than ADP's, we'll be seeing the third consecutive month of very weak job growth, well below even the lukewarm growth of 2013. That likely would mean the Federal Reserve will slow down its tapering of the quantitative easing program it has operated for several years as a—much criticized—technique to boost growth by buying mortgage-backed securities. Low job numbers would also probably spur many investment companies and analysts to reduce their predictions for U.S. economic growth in 2014 from 2.5-3 percent to 2 percent or less.
Of the total new jobs ADP reported Wednesday, 19,000 were goods producing, 120,000 in the service sector. Professional and business services were up 33,000; trade, transportation and utilities were up 31,000; construction was up 14,000; and manufacturing up 1,000. Financial services saw a drop of 2,000. ADP makes no distinction between part-time and full-time jobs.