Succinct rundown of jobs and GDP data

ADP said the private sector in July added a net 104k jobs, 28k more than anticipated while June was revised up by 10k but to a loss still of 23k jobs. Smoothing this out puts the 3 month job growth average at just 37k vs the 6 month average of 67k and the 12 month average of 130k. A clear deceleration in the pace of job growth.

Small business continues to be the drag on job growth. After shedding almost 50k jobs in June, they added back 12k but all came from those with 1-19 employees. Those between 20-49 lost another 10k. And for a second month, businesses with an employee size of 250-499 shed workers. Those between 50-249 added 55k and those with more than 500 added 46k.

The service sector added 74k jobs but interestingly the typically resilient education/health services lost 38k jobs. Maybe some private colleges reduced employment counts in light of the growing pressure on some of them. Leisure/hospitality job growth remained good, up 46k. Financial services added 28k while trade/transportation/utilities added 18k. Information and professional/business services each hired a net 9k.