Companies accelerated their hiring last month, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs in a sign the labor market remains healthy and the economy is strengthening after a weak winter.
The Los Angeles Times reports private-sector job creation figures released today by payroll firm Automatic Data Processing far exceeded analyst expectations and are well above the downwardly revised 174,000 net new positions added in April.
“Job growth is rip-roaring,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, which assists ADP in preparing its report.
Zandi notes the job creation was nearly three times what was needed to absorb new entrants into the labor force and predicted that, “increasingly, businesses’ number one challenge will be a shortage of labor.”
If that’s correct, wages should start to rise faster as the economic recovery from the Great Recession hits its eighth anniversary this month.
The report is based on an analysis of ADP’s payroll data. It is not the official government estimate, which the Labor Department is set to release on Friday, but is watched by economists for signs of what the government data will show.
The Los Angeles Times has the full story.
