MNI BRIEF: US Employment Booming, Wage Growth Contained -ADP
MNI (WASHINGTON) - U.S. employment growth has broadened beyond leisure and hospitality to include a bigger swath of the economy, pointing to underlying health in the job market even as wage growth moderates, ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said Wednesday.
ADP reported 233,000 new jobs were created last month despite the impact of two hurricanes and a major strike at Boeing, well above the 143,000 gain market analysts were forecasting.
Last year, strong growth in employment was "really being driven by one or two sectors," said Richardson in a call with reporters. "This time around, what we're seeing is job growth across almost every sector except one -- manufacturing. We are seeing that the national labor market was strong and broadly robust." (See MNI POLICY: Bumpy US Data Won't Take Fed Off Steady Course)
Richardson said the strong job market was being accompanied by a moderation in wages. Indeed she said the premium in wages paid to job changers versus job stayers had fallen to 1.5%, the lowest since ADP started collecting the data in 2019, from a peak of 9% in 2022.
"Wages will not be the trigger for any kind of rebound in inflation," Richardson said.