Hard data confirming all the anecdotes I gave you today/Yellen and the yield curve/ECI

I gave you anecdotes today from Robert Half, Manpower and LinkenIn all pointing to slowing hiring and the January ADP provides some hard data confirming that with job growth of just 107k vs the estimate of 150k. This is now the 6^th straight month of under 200k prints. The 3 month average is 123k vs the 6 month average of 125k, and the 12 month average of 207k.

The service sector added just 77k jobs with leisure/hospitality, trade/transportation/utilities and education/health leading the way while jobs were shed in the ‘information’ sector, including IT. The goods side added 30k after adding just 9k in December and seeing lost jobs in November. Most came in construction.

Pay for both ‘job stayers’ and ‘job changers’ slowed but at 5.2% and 7.2% respectively, they are still notable increases.

The bottom line continues to be more clear and that many data points, both anecdotal and hard, lead to a slowdown in the pace of hirings and the daily corporate announcements on layoffs have us all watching for a count on net firing’s in claims in coming months.