by Calculated Risk on 1/05/2022 08:20:00 AM
“December’s job market strengthened as the fallout from the Delta variant faded and Omicron’s impact had yet to be seen,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Job gains were broad-based, as goods producers added the strongest reading of the year, while service providers dominated growth. December’s job growth brought the fourth quarter average to 625,000, surpassing the 514,000 average for the year. While job gains eclipsed 6 million in 2021, private sector payrolls are still nearly 4 million jobs short of pre-COVID-19 levels.
emphasis added
This was well above the consensus forecast of 413,000 for this report.
The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 400 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in December. The ADP report has not been very useful in predicting the BLS report.
