Investing.com - The U.S. private sector shed 27,000 jobs in March, according to a report by payrolls processor ADP, before the worst of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the U.S. labor market was seen.
It was the first decline in private sector hiring since September 2017. Economists had expected the report to show a much larger loss of 150,000 jobs, while February’s figure was revised to 179,000 from the 183,000 initially reported.
“It is important to note that the ADP National Employment Report is based on the total number of payroll records for employees who were active on a company’s payroll through the 12th of the month. This is the same time period the Bureau of Labor and Statistics uses for their survey,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) Research Institute.
“As such, the March NER does not fully reflect the most recent impact of COVID-19 on the employment situation, including unemployment claims reported on March 26, 2020.”
The ADP numbers come ahead of the Labor Department's nonfarm payrolls report for March on Friday, which includes both public and private-sector employment.
Due to the timing of the survey period for Friday’s report it likely preceded the worst of the impact on the labor market. Economists still expect the figures to show a loss of 100,000 jobs.
Ahead of that, Thursday’s jobless claims report is expected to show another huge surge of new claims for unemployment benefits in the week to March 28, after they leaped to a record 3.28 million in the preceding week.
--Reuters contributed to this report