The economic mover and shaker this week is Friday's employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This monthly report contains a wealth of data for economists, the most publicized being the month-over-month change in Total Nonfarm Employment (the PAYEMS series in the FRED repository). However, each month a few days before we receive the highly anticipated jobs report, ADP releases their data on new nonfarm private jobs.
The ADP employment report revealed that 183,000 nonfarm private jobs were added in January, higher than the expected 148,000 addition.
The forecast for the forthcoming BLS report is that 154,000 jobs were added in January. Here is a visualization of the two series over the past twelve months.

Here is an excerpt from today's ADP report press release:
“We had a strong start to 2025 but it masked a dichotomy in the labor market,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Consumer-facing industries drove hiring, while job growth was weaker in business services and production.”
Here is a snapshot of the monthly change in the ADP headline number since the company's earliest published data with the new methodology in 2010. This is quite a volatile series, so we've plotted the monthly data points as dots along with a six-month moving average, which gives us a clearer sense of the trend. The latest six-month moving average is 193,000, up from 170,000 in December. This is the highest level since February 2023.
As we see in the chart above, the trend peaked in September 2015 and then went negative for the first time in late 2019, just before the NBER declared a recession start. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought employment numbers down to levels we have never seen this century. The trend reached a new high in 2021 at 875,000 and has recently dropped back to pre-pandemic levels.
ADP Employment: Industry
ADP also gives us a breakdown of Total Nonfarm Private Employment into two categories: Goods Producing and Service Providing. The US is predominantly a services economy, so it comes as no surprise that Services employment has shown stronger jobs growth. It makes sense that service-producing employment has plummeted during the pandemic for a couple of reasons - our economy is mostly supported by service-producing jobs, and during the pandemic, those same services were brought to a halt. In January, goods-producing jobs fell by 6,000 while service-providing jobs added 190,000.
The sector with the largest growth in January was Trade/Transportation/Utilities with a gain of 56,000. The biggest loser last month was Manufacturing with a loss of 13,000 jobs.

Here is the same chart style (as the one above) illustrating the two.

For a better sense of the components of the two Goods Producing and Service Providing cohorts, here is a year-over-year comparison snapshot of the select industries tracked by ADP making up the two groups.
The next chart is a linear representation of each industry's contribution to overall employment from the start of the series.

ADP Employment: Region
ADP also gives us a breakdown of Total Nonfarm Private Employment into nine regions (census divisions). The region with the largest growth in January was the East North Central, with a gain of 61,000 private jobs. Meanwhile, the West South Central region experienced the largest loss (-19,000).

Here is a year-over-year comparison snapshot of the select census divisions tracked by ADP.

The next chart is a linear representation of each region's contribution to overall employment from the start of the series.

ADP Employment: Establishment Size
ADP also gives us a breakdown of Total Nonfarm Private Employment into five sizes. Establishments with 500+ employees saw the largest growth in January with a gain of 69,000 private jobs.

Here is a year-over-year comparison snapshot of the select establishment sizes tracked by ADP.

The next chart is a linear representation of each establishment size's contribution to overall employment from the start of the series.

Here's our list of monthly employment updates:
Employment Situation Report
Unemployment Claims
Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle
Long-Term Trends by Age Group
Aging Work Force
Ratio of Part-Time and Full-Time Employment
Multiple Jobholders
Workforce Recovery Since Recession
Read more updates by Jen Nash