Ted S. Warren/APBy Dan BurnsNEW YORK -- U.S. private employers added 230,000 jobs in October, the most since June and exceeding economists' expectations as mid-sized businesses added the most workers in more than seven years, a report by payrolls processor ADP (ADP) showed Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 220,000 jobs.
Septemb! er's private payrolls were revised up to 225,000 from the previously reported 213,000.
Including October's gain, the U.S. economy has produced more than 200,000 private-sector jobs for a record seven straight months, dating back to the ADP series origin in May 2001. Private employers have now added jobs for 56 straight months at an average rate of more than 186,000 per month.
The report is jointly developed with Moody's Analytics.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, said: "The job market is steadily picking up pace. Job growth is strong and broad-based across industries and company sizes. At this pace of job growth unemployment and underemployment is quickly declining. The job market will soon be tight enough to support a meaningful acceleration in wage growth."
The ADP figures come ahead of the U.S. Labor Department's more comprehensive nonfarm payrolls report Friday, which includes both public and private sector employment. Economists polled by Reuters are looking for the total U.S. employment to have grown by 231,000 jobs in October, down from 248,000 in September, with private-sector hiring seen at 222,000 compared with 236,000 the month before.
Breaking the data down by business size and type, growth was led by mid-sized companies with between 50 and 499 employees and by firms in the services sector.
Medium employers added 122,000 jobs, the most in that category since! February 2007, more than double the 47,000 in September. Small firms, with fewer than 50 workers, added 102,000 new workers, up from about 93,000 in September.
Meanwhile, large firms, with 500 or more workers, added just 5,000 after having hired about 85,000 in September, which had been the briskest hiring pace among big companies since November 2012.
Service-providing employers added 181,000 jobs last month compared with about 176,000 in September.
Meanwhile, goods-producing companies added 48,000, down from around 50,000 the month before, which stood as the most new jobs in that sector since December 2012.
And manufacturers hired 15,000 new workers, about half of September's total of 33,000, which had been the most since March 2011.
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The gross domestic product measures the level of economic activity within a country. To figure the number, the Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the total consumption of goods and services by private individuals and businesses; the total investment in capital for producing goods and services; the total amount spent and consumed by federal, state, and local government entities; and total net exports. It's important, because it serves as the primary gauge of whether the economy is growing or not. Most economists define a recession as two or more consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP.
1. Gross Domestic Product -
The CPI measures current price levels for the goods and services that Americans buy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects price data on a basket of different items, ranging from necessities like food, clothing and housing to more discretionary expenses like eating out and entertainment. The resulting figure is then compared to those of previous months to determine the inflation rate, which is used in a variety of ways, including cost-of-living increases for Social Security and other government benefits.
2. Consumer Price Index -
The unemployment rate measures the percentage of workers within the total labor force who don't have a job, but who have looked for work in the past four weeks, and who are available to work. Those temporarily laid off from their jobs are also included as unemployed. Yet as critical as the figure is as a measure of how many people are out of work and therefore suffering financial hardship from a lack of a paycheck, one key item to note about the unemployment rate is that the number does not reflect workers who have stopped looking for work entirely. It's therefore important to look beyond the headline numbers to see whether the overall workforce is growing or shrinking.
3. Unemployment Rate -
The trade deficit measures the difference between the value of a nation's imported and exported goods. When exports exceed imports, a country runs a trade surplus. But in the U.S., imports have exceeded exports consistently for decades. The figure is important as a measure of U.S. competitiveness in the global market, as well as the nation's dependence on foreign countries.
4. Trade Deficit -
Each month, the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures changes in the total amount of income that the U.S. population earns, as well as the total amount they spend on goods and services. But there's a reason we've combined them on one slide: In addition to being useful statistics separately for gauging Americans' earning power and spending activity, looking at those numbers in combination gives you a sense of how much people are saving for their future.
5 & 6. Personal Income and Personal Spending -
Consumers play a vital role in powering the overall economy, and so measures of how confident they are about the economy's prospects are important in predicting its future health. The Conference Board does a survey asking consumers to give their assessment of both current and future economic conditions, with questions about business and employment conditions as well as expected future family income.
7. Consumer Confidence -
The health of the housing market is closely tied to the overall direction of the broader economy. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, named for economists Karl Case and Robert Shiller, provides a way to measure home prices, allowing comparisons not just across time but also among different markets in cities and regions of the nation. The number is important not just to home builders and home buyers, but to the millions of people with jobs related to housing and construction.
8. Housing Prices -
Most economic data provides a backward-looking view of what has already happened to the economy. But the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index attempts to gauge the future. To do so, the index looks at data on employment, manufacturing, home construction, consumer sentiment, and the stock and bond markets to put together a complete picture of expected economic conditions ahead.
9. Leading Economic Index - More from DailyFinance:
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