BOOMITY – Surprise to the Upside After Yesterday’s Gloomy ADP Jobs Report

The monthly report from private payroll processing firm ADP is typically viewed as a loose indicator of the direction the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) official jobs report is headed. It does have what’s been called a ‘spotty’ reputation regarding predictive accuracy as far as the government figures, but still has enough heft to make waves if numbers seem amiss. Or a miss.

When that came in yesterday for employment in June, the number was a shocker no one saw coming.

Private sector hiring unexpectedly contracted in June, payrolls processing firm ADP said Wednesday, in a possible sign that the economy may not be as sturdy as investors believe as they bid the S&P 500 back up to record territory to end the month.

Private payrolls lost 33,000 jobs in June, the ADP report showed, the first decrease since March 2023. Economists polled by Dow Jones forecast an increase of 100,000 for the month. The May job growth figure was revised even lower to just 29,000 jobs added from 37,000.

Collective ‘WTFO?’ followed by nervous gulps.

On the progressive side of the house, the triumphant ‘Told you so’s!’ were rolling almost immediately.

Fox Host Quickly Changes Tune After Jobs Report Misses the Mark

 All Trump’s ‘unleashing of economic uncertainty,’ etc.

Private employers shed 33,000 workers in June, the first monthly job loss in at least two years, payroll processing firm ADP said on Wednesday.

Why it matters: It is the most worrying job market indicator to date since President Trump unleashed a series of tariffs that ignited economic uncertainty.

…Still, both reports suggest the labor market is steadily cooling, with huge blind spots about how Trump’s trade war is weighing on the overall economy.

In all the doom and gloom or outright gloating over the ADP numbers, along with sudden sincere fretting about what the government’s Thursday figures would portend, I found one cautionary article.

Be very skeptical of ADP report showing economy lost jobs for the first time in years

Did the U.S. economy really lose jobs in June for the first time since the pandemic? Payroll king ADP says yes, but investors ought to treat the report with a heavy dose of skepticism.

ADP on Wednesday said the private sector eliminated 33,000 jobs last month, ostensibly due to uncertainty caused by U.S. trade wars. The decline in employment was the first ADP has measured since March 2023.

Wall Street forecasters had projected a 100,000 increase, so the surprise drop in employment weighed on Wall Street early in the trading day.

…The insight ADP gleans from its customers, however, has never proven to be crystal ball that help investors to figure out what the Bureau of Labor Statistics will show. The two reports use different methods to measure the size of the workforce and how many jobs are created each month.

The result: They often diverge month to month, sometimes wildly so, making the ADP a poor prognosticator for the BLS report.

…Through the first five months of 2025, the difference between the two reports has averaged a whopping 63,000 a month.

…Given its checkered history, some forecasters, such as Pantheon Economics, say the ADP report is “useless.”

What it does point out is that the ADP is helpful for the confirmation of trends. What’s trending between both reports is a gradual slowdown in hiring, but nowhere near the collapse indicated by the ADP’s employment numbers.

That was born out in spades when the BLS report dropped this morning and the numbers were ‘unexpected’ but to the upside.

Job growth proved better than expected in June, boosted by government hiring, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely took a July interest rate cut off the table.

Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, the lowest since February and against a forecast for a slight increase to 4.3%. A more encompassing rate that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons edged down to 7.7%, the lowest since January.

The numbers for May and April were revised as well, but unlike the previous administration’s constant stealth revisions to the downside, both of these months had small gains.

And yes, ‘government’ hiring was up, but instead of it being the federal government, it was state and local hiring. The feds are still shedding jobs, as promised, and all those who took the extended separation package offers have yet to make the unemployment rolls.

…Government employment posted a large gain, leading all categories with an increase of 73,000 due to solid boosts in state and local hiring, particularly in education-related jobs, which rose by 40,000. Federal government, which is still feeling the impact of cuts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, lost 7,000.

Not only did federal gov’t jobs decline yet again in Jun, but BLS even reminded folks that tens of thousands of workers are still being counted as employed even though they’re already either out or halfway out the door; expect the declines in federal payrolls to continue!🥳 pic.twitter.com/FXtS62NLx0

— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) July 3, 2025

College grads with jobs hit a record high, so you moochers can pay your own damn student loans off.

Full-time work numbers rose while part-time numbers dropped. The number of native-born Americans holding those jobs also rose, and the number of foreign workers seems to be plateauing.

Also noteworthy that in Dec the number of foreign-born workers w/ jobs was 3.5 million above pre-pandemic level, and is now just 3.6 million above pre-pandemic level; the vast majority of job growth this year has gone to native-born Americans: https://t.co/eE5LaZD7Oh

— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) July 3, 2025

This was one of Antoni’s more interesting charts, and I guess ‘bloated’ would be about the right term, no?

Wow. Never realized. Hiring even more, but adding 2M people in Biden’s last 2 yrs. still didn’t get Harris elected. Now, down a 1/2M in 6 mo.s, how fast and how much more air do you let out of the balloon?

— Ob-la-di-da (@JAHboning) July 3, 2025

To be sure, one of the concerns is the small business numbers. They have neither the resources nor the latitude to weather tariff wars and the higher costs of borrowing, so they’re not hiring and are extremely cautious. Hopefully things begin to turn around as trade deals tighten up and the manufacturing sector, which was also weak, rumbles back to life. 

Bummed by all the buoyancy in the air this morning, CNN is experiencing all the #sadz. I love it when they have an enthusiastic monitor person explaining unwelcome news to a downcast anchor.

CNN: “147K jobs! Well ahead of expectations! … we were expecting a slowdown, we did not get that!” “Every single time we expect it to run out of steam, it just keeps going and going!” 147,000 in Junepic.twitter.com/o8NXDBCQrb

— AJ Huber (@Huberton) July 3, 2025

THAT DOOM JUST HASN’T HAPPENED YET

CNN’s Berman pained to tell his audience: Predictions of job losses, inflation due to tariff policy have been wrong:

“That doom just hasn’t happened yet.” pic.twitter.com/tmyXFRRmY2

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 3, 2025

A good start to the morning.