US private sector hiring slows a tad in February, ADP says

Private sector payroll growth in the States slowed last month, the results of a closely-followed survey revealed.

According to consultancy ADP, privately-owned companies in the US took on 183 new hires in February, after a downwardly-revised 209,000 for January (preliminary: 291,000).

February's reading was nevertheless marginally better than the 175,000 print anticipated by the consensus.

Commenting on the latest survey reading, Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics attributed part of the move to the reversal of favourable weather effects.

He also pointed out that the figures appeared to show that the data on employment from firms that worked with ADP were "a bit weaker than expected".

Significantly, the revision to the estimate for January did not mean that investors should expect a downward revision to the official non-farm payrolls figures that were due for release two days afterwards, Shepherdson added.

The revision was the result of back-fitting the ADP numbers to those from the Commerce Department.

"In any event, these numbers now are old, pre-Covid 19 data," he said.

"What matters next is the employment components of the next round of business surveys, and the path of jobless claims ahead of the March report. Prudence suggests we have to expect softer jobs numbers for the next few months."