Amid 50-year lows in initial claims but slumping survey data, ADP printed a much-better-than-expected 235k (200k exp), a modest downtick from an upwardly revised January. Job gains were very broad-based and Mark Zandi confirmed “we’re going into the 3s” for unemployment.
“The job market is red hot and threatens to overheat. With government spending increases and tax cuts, growth is set to accelerate.”
This is the 5th month in a row of 200k-plus gains…
Only Information Service providers saw any jobs losses in February…
“The labor market continues to experience uninterrupted growth,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute.
“We see persistent gains across most industries with leisure and hospitality and retail leading the way as consumer spending kicked up. At this pace of job growth employers will soon become hard-pressed to find qualified workers.”
Finally, as a reminder, we note that since President Trump’s election, ADP’s data has been systemically upward-biased relative to the pre-Trump era…
Full breakdown:
While ADP gives us a glimpse of what is to come on Friday, all eyes will really be on the wage growth data and what that means for inflation (and The Fed)… but this data pretty much guarantees a March rate hike.
