Wednesday's ADP report came in better than expected. It also came with a few numbers that tell a different story.
Private sector payrolls grew by 63,000 in February, according to ADP's monthly employment report. That beat the Wall Street consensus of around 48,000 and marked the strongest monthly gain since July 2025. Construction added 19,000 jobs. Education and health services drove most of the growth, adding 58,000. Pay for workers who stayed in their jobs rose 4.5% year-over-year, holding steady from the prior month.
On the surface, that looks like a healthy labor market.
January's job number was revised down sharply — from 22,000 to just 11,000, the weakest monthly reading in recent memory. Raymond James economists Eugenio Alemán and Giampiero Fuentes noted that ADP also revised employment figures going back to October 2025, subtracting a net 159,000 jobs from prior months. The headline number for February looks better partly because the bar got lower.
The bigger concern is the concentration of growth. Hiring in February was driven almost entirely by two sectors, and ADP chief economist Dr. Nela Richardson flagged that the pay premium for switching jobs hit a record low in February — meaning workers who changed employers saw their smallest wage advantage on record. That's a signal that employer competition for talent is fading.
Manufacturing has now shed jobs every single month since March 2024.
ADP's monthly report drops two days before the government's official nonfarm payrolls number, making it a closely watched preview. A stronger ADP print usually bodes well for Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report — but the downward revisions to prior months temper that optimism.
Bloomberg noted that the February result adds to evidence of some stabilization in the labor market. That's the most accurate framing: not acceleration, not collapse — just a labor market that's finding a floor at levels well below where it was two years ago.
Friday's official number will tell us whether that floor is holding.
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