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4 January 2018
 |
| Jobs (The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions) |
U.S. companies closed out 2017 with strong hiring in December, adding
the most jobs in nine months.
The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Payroll processor ADP says that businesses
added 250,000 jobs last month, up from 185,000 in November. The gains were led
by robust hiring in health care, professional services such as accounting and
engineering, and retail.
The figures suggest that businesses are
optimistic about the economic outlook and are staffing up to meet greater
demand. ADP's data bodes well for the government's monthly jobs report, to be
released Friday. Economists forecast that will show a gain of 189,000 jobs,
according to a survey by data provider FactSet. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
The unemployment rate is projected to remain
at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent.
The ADP numbers cover business payrolls and
don't include government employment. They often diverge from the official
figures.
The U.S. economy is growing at a steady clip,
bolstered by a solid holiday shopping season. Most economists expect the Trump
administration's tax cuts to accelerate growth in 2018 by roughly one-third a
percentage point.
That should bring down the unemployment rate
to as low as 3.5 percent by the end of 2018, economists predict, which would be
the lowest in nearly a half-century. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's
Analytics, which helps compile the ADP data, said that healthy consumer
spending over the holidays helped lift hiring.
A category that includes retailers and
shipping companies added 45,000 jobs, the most since last December. Online
shopping has spurred shipping companies such as UPS to ramp up hiring over the
holidays.
Consumers likely spent more because they
anticipate some income gains from the tax cuts, Zandi said. Strong gains in the
stock market in December also likely helped. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
"My sense is the tax cuts probably have
their fingerprints on the employment numbers," Zandi said.The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
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