ADP Logs Surprise 33,000 Job Drop
Hiring hit the brakes in June, with the ADP National Employment Report showing U.S. private-sector payrolls shrinking by 33,000 positions—the first monthly contraction of 2025. Goods makers managed to eke out modest gains, but service industries bled jobs, and small businesses took the biggest hit. Wages, meanwhile, kept climbing faster than the official inflation gauges, hinting that the Federal Reserve’s long-promised “soft landing” is still more wish than reality. Against that backdrop of economic wobble and sticky pay growth, spot gold briefly touched $3,359 an ounce on Wednesday, not far from its all-time high.
The sector split was stark. Professional and business services shed 56,000 positions, and education and health services lost another 52,000. Those losses dwarfed the 32,000 hires in leisure and hospitality and the 15,000 additions in manufacturing. Overall, goods-producing industries created 32,000 jobs, but service-providers cut 66,000, underscoring a cooling demand for white-collar labor even as factory floors stay relatively busy. “Though layoffs continue to be rare, a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month,” cautioned ADP chief economist Dr. Nela Richardson.
Source: ADP Research
Company size told a similar tale of caution. Firms with fewer than 50 workers axed 47,000 jobs, while medium-sized employers (250–499 staff) trimmed 27,000. Only the corporate giants added appreciably, with firms of 500 or more employees boosting payrolls by 30,000. Mid-sized outfits employing 50–249 people managed a small 12,000-job gain. For Main-Street entrepreneurs already wrestling with higher financing costs and stubborn input inflation, the latest figures suggest a rough summer ahead.
Regionally, the Midwest led the retreat, down 24,000 positions—largely because the West North Central division (home to much of the nation’s farm and machinery belt) lost 28,000 jobs. ADP also quietly revised May’s already tepid gain to just 29,000 from the initially reported 37,000, reinforcing the sense of a downshift that traditional government statistics have yet to capture. ADP’s next snapshot lands July 30. If hiring doesn’t revive—and wages don’t retreat—the chorus expecting rate cuts may grow quieter, while the case for holding at least some savings in sound money could grow louder still.
