ADP Reports 178,000 New Jobs Added From April To May

Private sector employment jumped by 178,000 jobs from April to May, according to the May ADP National Employment Report. In a press release announcing the results of the data, ADP said that the labor market is tightening.

Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute said, “The hot job market has cooled slightly as the labor market continues to tighten. Healthcare and professional services remain a model of consistency and continue to serve as the main drivers of growth in the services sector and the broader labor market as well.”

Economists polled by Bloomberg expected ADP to come out with a 190,000 job gain in the private sector from April to May.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics said in the press release, “Job growth is strong, but slowing, as businesses are unable to fill a record number of open positions. Wage growth is accelerating in response, most notably for young, new entrants and those changing jobs. Finding workers is increasingly becoming businesses number one problem.”

According to ADP, medium businesses — those with 50 to 499 employees — added 84,000 workers from April to May, while smaller businesses were responsible for 38,000 and large companies account for 56,000 of the newly employed. Service-providing industries led the gains, adding 114,000, while goods-producing businesses added 64,000 jobs.

The report comes as at least one industry is having a tough time finding workers. On Tuesday (May 29), the American Trucking Associations (ATA) said that the U.S. is facing a shortage of 50,000 truck drivers, impacting both retailers and consumers. The U.S. will need 898,000 additional drivers over the next 10 years to meet future demand, CNBC reported.

The industry faces some challenges: The trucking lifestyle can be demanding, with drivers working long hours away from home for long periods of time. In addition, electronic logging devices (ELDs) limit the number of hours a driver can work. And, even though Goldman Sachs projects that autonomous cars could take 25,000 jobs per month, self-driving trucks might not solve the truck driver shortage in the near future.