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Private Sector Employment Increased by 62,000 Jobs in April; Annual Pay was Up 4.5%

Staff Report From Georgia CEO

Thursday, May 1st, 2025

Private sector employment increased by 62,000 jobs in April and annual pay was up 4.5 percent year-over-year, according to the April ADP® National Employment Report™ produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab ("Stanford 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.

"Unease is the word of the day. Employers are trying to reconcile policy and consumer uncertainty with a run of mostly positive economic data," said Dr. Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. "It can be difficult to make hiring decisions in such an environment."

April 2025 Report Highlights*

View the ADP National Employment Report and interactive charts at www.adpemploymentreport.com.

JOBS REPORT

Private employers added 62,000 jobs in April
Education and health services, information, and professional and business services lost jobs, while hiring in other sectors was moderate.

Change in U.S. Private Employment:     62,000

Change by Industry Sector 

- Goods-producing:     26,000

  • Natural resources/mining     6,000

  • Construction     16,000

  • Manufacturing     4,000

- Service-providing:     34,000

  • Trade/transportation/utilities     21,000

  • Information     -8,000

  • Financial activities     20,000

  • Professional/business services     -2,000

  • Education/health services     -23,000

  • Leisure/hospitality     27,000

  • Other services     -1,000

Change by U.S. Regions

- Northeast:     10,000

  • New England     -33,000

  • Middle Atlantic     43,000

- Midwest:     42,000

  • East North Central     39,000

  • West North Central     3,000

- South:     3,000

  • South Atlantic     -8,000

  • East South Central     54,000

  • West South Central     -43,000

- West:     9,000

  • Mountain     8,000

  • Pacific     1,000

Change by Establishment Size

- Small establishments:     11,000

  • 1-19 employees     20,000

  • 20-49 employees     -9,000

- Medium establishments:     40,000

  • 50-249 employees     21,000

  • 250-499 employees     19,000

- Large establishments:     12,000

  • 500+ employees     12,000

PAY INSIGHTS

Pay gains were steady in April
Pay for job-stayers rose 4.5 percent in April from a year earlier, a slight deceleration from March. Year-over-year pay gains for job-changers accelerated, rising from 6.7 percent in March to 6.9 percent in April.

Median Change in Annual Pay (ADP matched person sample)

- Job-Stayers     4.5%
- Job-Changers     6.9%

Median Change in Annual Pay for Job-Stayers by Industry Sector

- Goods-producing:                                                       

  • Natural resources/mining     4.4%
  • Construction     4.7%
  • Manufacturing     4.6%

- Service-providing:                                               

  • Trade/transportation/utilities     4.3%
  • Information     4.1%
  • Financial activities     5.1%
  • Professional/business services     4.3%
  • Education/health services     4.7%
  • Leisure/hospitality     4.7%
  • Other services     4.3%

Median Change in Annual Pay for Job-Stayers by Firm Size

- Small firms:                                                                

  • 1-19 employees     2.8%
  • 20-49 employees     4.2%

- Medium firms:                                                             

  • 50-249 employees     4.8%
  • 250-499 employees     4.9%

- Large firms:                                                                

  • 500+ employees     4.8%

To see Pay Insights by U.S. State, Gender, and Age for Job-Stayers, visit here.

* Sum of components may not equal total due to rounding.

The March total number of jobs added was revised from 155,000 to 147,000. The historical data file and weekly data for the previous month are available at https://adpemploymentreport.com/.

To subscribe to monthly email alerts or obtain additional information about the ADP National Employment Report, including employment and pay data, interactive charts, methodology, and a calendar of release dates, please visit https://adpemploymentreport.com/.    

The May 2025 ADP National Employment Report will be released at 8:15 a.m. ET on June 4, 2025.