This private study of job loss is the first estimate to be released about June job loss figures, and will be followed in several weeks with more official estimates from the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
ADP’s report noted that:
Nonfarm private employment decreased 473,000 from May to June 2009 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report. The estimated change of employment from April to May was revised by [downward] 47,000, from a decline of 532,000 to a decline of 485,000. Monthly employment losses in April, May, and June averaged 492,000. This is a notable improvement over the first three months of the year, when monthly losses averaged 691,000. Nevertheless, despite some recent indications that economic activity is stabilizing, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to decline for at least several more months, although perhaps not as rapidly as during the last six months.
Job losses occurred across the economy, the ADP report added, with job losses from large, small, and middle-sized companies, as well as losses in every industry, including the construction, financials, manufacturing, and service industries.
President Barack Obama recently conceded in a June 23 press conference that unemployment would top 10 percent this year, though his administration had pledged back in February that the unemployment level would top out at nine percent without his stimulus and would not top eight percent if Congress passed his $787 billion “stimulus” package. At the June 23 press conference, Obama’s rosy but wildly inaccurate predictions were pointed out by reporters. Obama declined repeated requests from Bloomberg News reporter Hans Nichols for a new prediction on when the job losses would stop, telling the reporter, “I’m not suggesting that I have a crystal ball. Since you just threw back at us our last prognosis, let’s not — let’s not engage in another one.”
