Job recovery remains weak, ADP report finds

Businesses added 91,000 jobs in August, “a pace below what would be consistent with a stable unemployment rate,” according to the ADP National Employment Report released today.

Businesses added 91,000 jobs in August, “a pace below what would be consistent with a stable unemployment rate,” according to the ADP National Employment Report released today.

Roseland-based Automatic Data Processing Inc. also announced it revised the previous month’s estimated job creation numbers down to 109,000, from the initially reported 114,000.

“The report indicated that the national labor market is tiptoeing to nowhere,” said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at the Roseland CPA firm J.H. Cohn LLP. “For the 19th consecutive month, the private sector added jobs — but it’s doing so at a decelerating rate.”

Small business payrolls rose by 58,000 in August, while companies with 50 to 499 workers added 30,000 jobs, according to ADP. Large businesses created 3,000 jobs.

“During the first four months of 2011, we averaged 194,000 net new private-sector jobs per month,” O’Keefe said. “So this is only one-half of what we were doing. Based on the ADP report, I expect Friday’s federal Bureau of Labor Statistics report to be the weakest that we’ve seen since the job recovery began in March 2010.”