US job creation surges in October: Payroll firm

WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse

The U.S. private sector saw job creation rebound strongly in October, after being tamped down in the prior month by back-to-back hurricanes, payroll firm ADP reported Nov. 1.

The surge beat the consensus estimate among economists and was in line with analysts’ expectations for an even bigger rebound in the key government jobs report due out Friday.Total private employment jumped by 235,000 last month, after a rise of just 110,000 in September, which was the lowest in nearly a year and worse than originally reported, according to the data.The increase was driven by huge improvements in the services sector, which added 150,000 new positions, and the goods producing sector, which increased by 85,000.Construction added 62,000 jobs, the biggest jump since February 2006, helped by hurricane recovery hiring.

“The job market rebounded strongly from the hit it took from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said in a statement.“Resurgence in construction jobs shows the rebuilding is already in full swing.”    

Ahu Yıldırmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, noted that small businesses “rebounded well from the impact of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, posting very strong gains.”    

The data showed small businesses, with less than 50 employees, added 79,000 employees after seeing declines in September, while large business added 90,000.

The two hurricanes wreaked havoc in Texas and Florida over a two-week period beginning in late August, although the damage in Florida was less severe than feared.Economists say the United States is likely to see a rebound in hiring in the months after the storms, with reconstruction efforts causing a bump in demand for services and labor.

The consensus forecast is for total nonfarm payrolls to surge 300,000 in October, with a slightly larger increase for private payrolls, after plunging 33,000 in September.The ADP report covers 411,000 firms and 24 million workers and as used as a signal on the overall labor market, even while it does not always track the official data closely, since they use different data.