On the whole, US firms cut 27,000 jobs in March, ADP said Wednesday, in a report that will almost surely be dismissed as largely irrelevant considering the rapidly evolving circumstances.
It’s the first negative monthly print since September of 2017, but it was far better than estimates.
Consensus was looking for -150,000 on the headline. The range from more than three-dozen economists was absurd (from -1500k to 95k).
“The report utilizes data through the 12th of the month… as such, the March NER does not reflect the full impact of COVID-19 on the overall employment situation”, ADP reminds you.
And yet, a quick look at the history of the services sector series suggests March was only the second month of job losses since 2009 (the other being September 2017, in and around hurricanes Harvey and Irma).
Small businesses shed 90,000 positions. Those with 1-19 employees dropped 66,000 workers. If there’s one key takeaway from the report, it’s probably that small, vulnerable companies were rapidly laying off workers even before the lockdown measures proliferated in earnest.
The following breakdown shows you where the pain was felt most acutely (it’s in services).
Again, this is already stale – and “stale” is probably an understatement.
The report only captures data through March 12, which means the full impact of the myriad stay-at-home orders and various other manifestations of containment protocols are not reflected.
But they will be.
These are just the clouds ahead of the storm.
From last may:
According to BofAML, 13% of companies in advanced economies are zombies, while 16% of American companies are zombified.
That sounds if anything low….