Private sector employment increased by 155,000 jobs in March and annual pay was up 4.6 percent year-over-year, according to the March ADP National Employment Report produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
The ADP National Employment Report is an independent measure and high-frequency view of the private-sector labor market based on actual, anonymized payroll data of more than 25 million U.S. employees.
The jobs report and pay insights use ADP’s fine-grained anonymized and aggregated payroll data to provide a representative picture of the private-sector labor market. The report details the current month’s total private employment change, and weekly job data from the previous month. Because the underlying ADP payroll databases are continuously updated, the report provides a high-frequency, near real-time measure of U.S. employment.
This measure reflects the number of employees on ADP client payrolls (Payroll Employment) to provide a richer understanding of the labor market. As of January 2025, ADP’s Pay Insights measure captures nearly 14.8 million individual pay change observations each month, up from nearly 10 million when it launched.
“Despite policy uncertainty and downbeat consumers, the bottom line is this: The March topline number was a good one for the economy and employers of all sizes, if not necessarily all sectors,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP.
From the jobs report:
Manufacturing delivered stronger-than-average job gains for the second straight month. Construction hiring slowed. Natural resources and trade, transportation, and utilities lost jobs.
Change in U.S. Private Employment: 155,000
Change by Industry Sector
– Goods-producing: 24,000
- Natural resources/mining -3,000
- Construction 6,000
- Manufacturing 21,000
– Service-providing: 132,000
- Trade/transportation/utilities -6,000
- Information 3,000
- Financial activities 38,000
- Professional/business services 57,000
- Education/health services 12,000
- Leisure/hospitality 17,000
- Other services 11,000
Change by U.S. Regions
– Northeast: 89,000
- New England 57,000
- Middle Atlantic 32,000
– Midwest: 81,000
- East North Central 76,000
- West North Central 5,000
– South: 27,000
- South Atlantic 7,000
- East South Central 24,000
- West South Central -4,000
– West: -41,000
- Mountain -12,000
- Pacific -29,000
Change by Establishment Size
– Small establishments: 52,000
- 1-19 employees 42,000
- 20-49 employees 10,000
– Medium establishments: 43,000
- 50-249 employees 34,000
- 250-499 employees 9,000
– Large establishments: 59,000
- 500+ employees 59,000
PAY INSIGHTS
Pay gains slowed in March
Year-over-year pay gains slowed to 4.6 percent for job-stayers and to 6.5 percent for job-changers. The pay premium for job-changers was 1.9 percentage points, matching a series low last seen in September.
Median Change in Annual Pay (ADP matched person sample)
– Job-Stayers 4.6%
– Job-Changers 6.5%
Median Change in Annual Pay for Job-Stayers by Industry Sector
– Goods-producing:
- Natural resources/mining 4.3%
- Construction 4.7%
- Manufacturing 4.8%
– Service-providing:
- Trade/transportation/utilities 4.3%
- Information 4.0%
- Financial activities 5.3%
- Professional/business services 4.4%
- Education/health services 4.7%
- Leisure/hospitality 4.7%
- Other services 4.4%
Median Change in Annual Pay for Job-Stayers by Firm Size
– Small firms:
- 1-19 employees 2.9%
- 20-49 employees 4.2%
– Medium firms:
- 50-249 employees 4.8%
- 250-499 employees 5.0%
– Large firms:
- 500+ employees 4.9%
View the ADP National Employment Report and interactive charts at online.
