by Calculated Risk on 3/31/2021 08:19:00 AM

From ADP:

Private sector employment increased by 517,000 jobs from February to March according to the March ADP® National Employment ReportTM. Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by the ADP Research Institute® in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis

“We saw marked improvement in March’s labor market data, reporting the strongest gain since September 2020,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Job growth in the service sector significantly outpaced its recent monthly average, led with notable increase by the leisure and hospitality industry. This sector has the most opportunity to improve as the economy continues to gradually reopen and the vaccine is made more widely available. We are continuing to keep a close watch on the hardest hit sectors but the groundwork is being laid for a further boost in the monthly pace of hiring in the months ahead.”
emphasis added

This was below the consensus forecast of 550,000 for this report.

The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 565 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in March. The ADP report has not been very useful in predicting the BLS report.