Washington, DC, January 3, 2007--According to the ADP employment report released Wednesday, private-sector employment fell by 40,000 in December, the first decline in nearly four years.
"These findings suggest an abrupt slowing of employment," in contrast to relatively strong job growth averaging 121,000 over the past three years, said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomics Advisers, the economic firm that computes the ADP index from anonymous payroll data supplied by Automatic Data Processing Inc.
The last time that the ADP report showed a decline in jobs was in April 2003, coinciding with the pre-war economic slump.
The ADP report's results are in sharp contrast to the upbeat projections of economists for the government's nonfarm payrolls survey to be released on Friday. Economists are expecting payrolls--both public-and private-sector--to grow by about 103,000 for December.
Together with an estimated 15,000 or so additional government jobs that aren't included in the ADP index, the report suggests nonfarm payrolls likely fell by about 25,000 in December. That would be the first decline since July 2003.
