Survey: U.S. added 118K jobs in November

A private survey on November hiring released today in advance of Friday’s official report from the government shows that U.S. businesses added fewer jobs than the month previous, mostly because Superstorm Sandy shut down factories, retail stores, and other companies in a large section of the Northeast. Payroll processor ADP says that employers added 118,000 jobs last month. That’s below October’s total of 157,000, which was revised lower. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says the storm cut payrolls by an estimated 86,000 jobs but that, excluding the effects of the storm, “the job market turned in a good performance during the month.” ADP and Moody’s Analytics are calculating job gains with a different methodology than the survey previously used. The new method covers more businesses. Previous ADP reports frequently produced figures much different from government data. The report only looks at hiring in the private sector and excludes government hiring. The Labor Department will offer a more complete picture of the November job market on Friday. The full story can be found here.