ADP: Private Hiring Nearly Flat In January At 22,000

Private employers added just 22,000 jobs in January, ADP reported, a soft start to the year that underscores how narrowly concentrated hiring has become even as layoffs remain relatively low.

What Happened

On February 4, 2026, payroll firm ADP estimated that U.S. private-sector employment rose by 22,000 in January, roughly half of what many forecasters anticipated and down from a revised 37,000 in December. ADP also rebenchmarked its data, lowering its 2025 private-payrolls estimate to 398,000 from 771,000. The figures arrive as the Labor Department’s official January jobs report—typically released on the first Friday of the month—was pushed to February 11, 2026 after a brief government shutdown.

Where Hiring Is Concentrated

The month’s modest gains were driven almost entirely by education and health services, which added 74,000 jobs. Most other major categories were flat or negative. Professional and business services shed 57,000 jobs, while manufacturing posted an 8,000-job decline. By employer size, medium-sized firms added workers, large companies cut positions, and small businesses were roughly unchanged. Pay growth for job stayers held steady at 4.5% from a year earlier, suggesting wage pressures continue to cool without collapsing.

Why It Matters And What’s Next

ADP’s readings don’t always track the government’s count, but in a period of delayed federal data they offer an early view into a labor market that looks stable yet less dynamic. Hiring has slowed notably from the post-pandemic surge, and ADP’s revisions imply 2025 was weaker than previously thought. The picture: a “low-hire, low-fire” environment in which openings and job switching have cooled, and growth is increasingly reliant on a handful of service industries.

Investors and policymakers will get a fuller view when the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes January employment figures on February 11, 2026. Until then, the ADP snapshot suggests that labor demand remains positive but tepid, with momentum concentrated in health care and other services rather than across the broader economy.

Sources

• Private-Sector Job Growth Cooled in January — Wall Street Journal (February 4, 2026)
• ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 22,000 Jobs in January; Annual Pay was Up 4.5% — PR Newswire (February 4, 2026)