A Good Morning for Jobs

This morning, ADP presented markets with welcome data. Q4 GDP data was sketchy.

The U.S. jobs market is markedly improving. Private-sector jobs increased +192,000 from December to January on a seasonally adjusted basis. This beat the expectation of +173,000 jobs. From November to December, ADP revised down its estimate by -30,000, to +185,000. For Friday's Federal jobs report, the expectation is for +163,000 January adds. Looking at the monthly chart, the last weak jobs report (aka below +100K) was back in August 2012, now five months back. Highlights on business growth showed small businesses were the ones hiring. This fits in well with the flat Q4 earnings profile of the S&P500 large cap story.

• Small businesses (1-49 employees) +115,000
• Medium businesses (50-499 employees) +79,000
• Large businesses (500 or more employees) -2,000

The “Industry Snapshot” showed winter construction jobs added were a bit weak, but still positive. Professional business services jobs added was stronger than seen in six months.

• Professional Business Services +40,000
• Trade/transportation/utilities +33,000
• Construction +15,000
• Financial activities +12,000
• Manufacturing -3,000

This number was eclipsed by the weak -0.1% Q4 GDP print this morning, which was riven with major adjustments. But I noted that consumption growth was +2.2% in Q4, which is “muddle through” activity. What do you make of these numbers?

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