WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. private payrolls increased less than expected in April, likely restrained by persistent worker shortages.
Private payrolls rose by 247,000 jobs last month, the ADP National Employment Report showed on Wednesday. Data for March was revised higher to show 479,000 jobs added instead of the initially reported 455,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private payrolls would increase by 395,000 jobs.
The ADP report is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics and was published ahead of the Labor Department’s more comprehensive and closely watched employment report for April on Friday. It has, however, a poor record predicting the private payrolls count in the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report because of methodology differences.
Government data on Tuesday showed there were a record 11.5 million job openings on the last day of March, which pushed up the jobs-workers gap to a record 3.4% of the labor force from 3.1% in February.
According to a Reuters survey of economists, private payrolls likely increased by 385,000 jobs in April after rising 426,000 in March. With further gains in government employment expected, that would likely led to nonfarm payrolls increasing by 394,000. The economy created 431,000 jobs in March.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
