No Foolin': ADP Jobs Led by Small Companies

Wednesday, April 1st, 2026

Welcome back to “Jobs Week” on this April Fool’s Day, where monthly Automatic Data Processing ADP numbers are out for March. Headline +62K private-sector jobs were created last month, higher than the +39K analysts were expecting, and only slightly down from the upwardly revised +66K for February.

New jobs in the private sector were pretty fairly balanced between Goods (+30K) and Services (+32K). Job Stayers averaged +4.5% in wage increases year over year; Job Changers — which had flattened considerably over the past few months — widened out a tad to +6.6% in this morning’s report.

Here’s the surprise from this print: Small private sector firms (sub-50 employees), brought in the lion’s share of new jobs last month: +85K. Large corporations (500 workers or more) lost -4K and the remaining -20K was from medium-sized companies. Education/Healthcare led the way once again with +58K new jobs in the private sector, followed by +30K in Construction and +7K in Leisure/Hospitality. Manufacturing lost -11K private-sector jobs in the month, and Trade/Transportation/Utilities cancelled out Education/Healthcare jobs, -58K.

ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson, on this mornings “Squawk Box” program on CNBC, attributes part of this to a “shift in demand toward home healthcare,” both among aging customers looking for assistance in their current residence and employees often looking to supplement their household income by taking a second or third part-time job. Many of these newly filled positions in the Healthcare space do not come with 401(k)s or health insurance plans. Part-time employment is rising in the U.S., even as outright joblessness does not look like a huge problem.

Richardson also pointed out that “we haven’t seen any of that (fallout from the Iran war) yet,” but that if energy costs “spill over into hiring,” that this may have a negative impact on small-business hiring in the near future. Non-farm payroll estimates from the U.S. government on Friday are expected to come in at +59K.
 

Retail Sales (February) Improve Over Expectations

The latest delayed economic print this morning came from U.S. Retail Sales for February, which came in +10 basis points (bps) from expectations to +0.6%, following a downwardly revised -0.1% from the prior month. Ex-autos rises to +0.5%, 20 bps above estimates, while the January revision ups 20 bps to +0.2%. Ex-autos & gas reached +0.4%, up slightly from the upwardly revised +0.3% sequentially.
 

What to Expect After the Open

Manufacturing prints are on order for after the opening bell. S&P final Manufacturing PMI for March ratcheted up notably to 52.4 from 51.6 the previous month. ISM Manufacturing moved slightly in the opposite direction — 52.1% from 52.4% last reported — but still above the crucial 50-level, which indicates growth versus loss.

Meanwhile, the Dow is up again in this morning’s pre-market, +190 points, +0.41%. The S&P 500 is +29, +0.44%, and the Nasdaq — fresh off a nearly 800-point gain yesterday — is up another +155 points, +0.65%. The small-cap Russell 2000 is +11 points, +0.46%. The blue-chip Dow is positive over the past five trading days, but all major indexes are still way down in the past month.

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