Outside the Beltway

Good News On The Jobs Front?

Doug Mataconis · Wednesday, January 5, 2011 · 3 comments

It’s unclear how this will correlate to the official unemployment report due out on Friday, but the private sector jobs report from ADP is looking really, really good:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. private employers added 297,000 jobs in December compared with a revised gain of 92,000 in November, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

The November figure was originally reported as a gain of 93,000.

The reaction from economists is very positive:

TIM GHRISKEY, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER OF SOLARIS ASSET MANAGEMENT IN BEDFORD HILLS, NEW YORK:

“Huge number, what a surprise. This is a number that is watched closely by the market as an indication of the official government employment level. There is some talk that this is simply a data catch up, that prior ADP data was understated.

But it certainly looks to us that this is further indication that the economy continues to slowly but surely improve and while we are not looking for jumps in employment we are looking for steady improvement in employment as we’ve seen over the past year, just at a very measured pace.

(…)

TOM PORCELLI, U.S. ECONOMIST, RBC CAPITAL MARKETS, NEW YORK:

“You cannot ignore the strength of this report. As a consequence of this report we are taking our payrolls estimate higher for sure. Small business continues to add jobs. With small business now beginning to start to ramp up hiring, it’s safe to feel better about the labor backdrop.”

Good news for the New Year? Let’s hope so.