Companies Added 201,000 Jobs in March, ADP Says

The U.S. added 201,000 private-sector jobs in March, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to ADP’s National Employment Report. The tally “removes any remaining doubt that private nonfarm payroll employment accelerated heading into 2011,” ADP said in releasing the numbers.

The report is consistent with expectations and with Friday’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

ADP added, however, that the estimated change of employment from January to February this year had been revised down to 208,000 from the previously reported increase of 217,000. And it noted that the average monthly increase in employment over the last four months — December through March — has been 211,000, an increase that it called consistent with the gradual-but-uneven fall in the nation’s unemployment rate.

Service-sector employment rose by 164,000 in March, its fifteenth consecutive month of gains. Employment in the financial services sector increased 4,000, according to ADP. The goods- producing sector created 37,000 more jobs, its fifth monthly gain, while manufacturing employment rose 37,000, its sixth consecutive straight increase. Construction employment fell by 5,000, marking a total sector decline since its January 2007 peak of 2.1 million.

Among large companies (500 or more workers) there were 17,000 more jobs in the latest month, while medium-sized firms, with between 50 and 499 workers, created 82,000 more jobs. Employment among small businesses accounted for the remaining 102,000 jobs added in March.

ADP based its report on data from about 340,000 businesses, with more than 21 million workers.

A Bloomberg News analysis called the ADP numbers a sign that the labor market’s strength continues to increase. Bloomberg’s own survey had called for a 208,000 gain. Among other recent results the news service cited were rises in capital investing and in consumer spending, which had prompted companies like General Motors to hire more staff.

GM was among the nation’s companies adding staff to meet higher demand. GM will recall the last of its laid-off workers by September, United Auto Workers Vice President Joe Ashton said last week, according to the news service. “We only have about 2,000 people now laid off and those people will all be back to work in September,” Ashton, who handles negotiations with GM, told union workers at the UAW’s Special Convention on Collective Bargaining in Detroit.

“The labor market is steady,” Lindsey Piegza, an economist at FTN Financial in New York, told Bloomberg. “Those who are employed aren’t fearing they’re going to lose their jobs.” Projections of the 34 economists the news service polled had showed expected gains of 171,000 to 295,000.

Bloomberg also reported that an economist projection for the Labor Department, to be released April 1, shows that businesses added 210,000 jobs in March, with the jobless rate holding at 8.9%.

The data in the ADP report “is pointing to a turnaround in labor-market conditions,” said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis, which works with ADP. “It’s pretty clear that employment now has in fact accelerated. Equally encouraging is the breadth of the strength,” he said in a conference call that Bloomberg attended.

Headhunter Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. also offered numbers showing fewer job reductions by companies in March. Government reduced payrolls at the highest level in a year, the Chicago-based company said. But planned firings fell 39%, to 41,528 in March, compared to the year-earlier firings. It said that nearly half the job reductions in the month reflected public-employee layoffs.

Among other positive indications Bloomberg cited included a March 15 Federal Reserve statement that labor-market conditions “appear to be improving gradually,” with the economy now on a firmer footing.