Hiring Picks Up Amid Steady Weekly Job Growth in US Private Sector: ADP

Other measurements suggest the labor market’s low firing, low hiring trend persists.

A store window in Norfolk, Va., on Oct. 5, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The U.S. labor market may be rebounding after several months of cooling employment conditions, new data released on Oct. 28 show.

Lacking government-sourced data, private payroll processor ADP Research will publish a rolling, four-week average of weekly employment changes each Tuesday starting this week. The preliminary data will function with a two-week lag.

U.S. private companies created an average of 14,250 new jobs per week over the four weeks ending Oct. 11, ADP said in the report.

The ADP projection suggests employment growth totaled approximately 57,000 over the four weeks.

By comparison, private businesses eliminated 32,000 jobs in September, reflecting the sharpest payroll decline since March 2023, according to the latest National Employment Report. This followed a headcount reduction of 3,000 in August.

“Growth in employment in the most recent weeks suggests that the labor market is emerging from a trough of job losses,” Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“Hiring has begun to increase from September levels, albeit slowly and without the positive momentum we saw earlier this year,” Richardson continued. “This tepid recovery could still support economic growth because our run of weekly job losses seems to have been relatively short-lived.”

ADP’s new weekly series will differ from the monthly National Employment Report—a measure of monthly changes in job growth across multiple sectors and business sizes—which is typically released on the Wednesday before the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ payrolls report.

Searching Elsewhere

Investors and policymakers have been flying blind since the four-week government shutdown began. Many have relied on alternative metrics to assess the labor market’s health.

Various alternatives suggest a continuing trend toward a low-fire, low-hire environment.

The Chicago Federal Reserve Labor Market Indicators—a biweekly report combining real-time private sector numbers with official labor data—suggested the unemployment rate might have slightly ticked up to 4.35 percent in October from 4.34 percent in September.

Additionally, the hiring rate for unemployed workers this month was 45.18 percent, down from 45.38 percent in September, the Chicago Fed said. The rate for layoffs and other separations was little changed at 2.09 percent.

ADP’s new data, meanwhile, may support S&P Global’s flash U.S. Purchasing Managers’ Index—a monthly survey depicting the economy’s prevailing direction—released this past week.

The October report suggested employment growth picked up, rising for the 10th time in the past 11 months.

“Employment growth was curtailed by a lack of suitable candidates to replace leavers but also reflected concerns over staffing needs given current sales levels and uncertainty over the demand outlook,” S&P Global said.

Job postings on Indeed, using a seven-day trailing average, have sharply fallen since late August to a four-year low.

With the holiday season fast approaching, job seeker interest in seasonal work was up 27 percent in September—50 percent above 2023 levels—according to new Indeed Hiring Labor data. While seasonal job postings increased from a year ago, they rose by only 2.7 percent.

“The 2025 holiday hiring landscape is shaping up to be more competitive for job seekers than it has been in recent years. While seasonal job postings are up slightly compared to last year, they remain below pre-pandemic levels,” Cory Stahle, economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said in a report.

A hiring ad is displayed at a store in Columbia, Md., on Sept. 18, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Current employment conditions are beginning to weigh on employee sentiment, according to separate research from ADP.

The Employee Motivation and Commitment Index dipped for the second consecutive month across multiple sectors, including manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, and educational services.

“Worker sentiment has been mostly unaffected by this year’s hiring slowdown, but this resilience might be starting to fray,” said Mary Hayes, director of people and performance at ADP Research. “We’ll be watching to see whether sentiment continues to weaken.”

The October nonfarm payrolls report is scheduled to be released on Nov. 7.

With betting platforms such as Polymarket predicting that the government shutdown will persist well into November, economic observers may miss out on another batch of vital data.