WASHINGTON, United States, Sept 2, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Hiring in the US private 
sector in August was at its slowest pace since the start of the year, data 
from payroll firm ADP showed Wednesday, missing market expectations for the 
third straight month.

Private sector job growth came in at 38,000 last month, down from the month 
before and well below the 47,000 predicted by economists polled by Dow Jones 
Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

The manufacturing, professional services and information sectors lost jobs, 
while education and health care, construction, and leisure and hospitality 
all showed robust hiring, ADP said.

The figures are closely monitored ahead of official employment numbers due 
Friday, although the reports can diverge.

The US unemployment rate has remained relatively steady in the last year, but 
official statistics on job growth have seesawed between growth and 
contraction over that period.

US private sector hiring, however, has remained in growth since July last 
year, according to ADP data.

"The acceleration in payroll gains in the first half of the year looks to 
have cooled, settling into a more tepid pattern associated with the no hire, 
no fire labor market," said Matthew Martin, senior economist at Oxford 
Economics.

In August, base pay for all private-sector workers rose by 3.2 percent, with 
gross pay up 4.7 percent year-over-year, according to ADP data.

US inflation has remained above the Federal Reserve's long-term two percent 
target for more than five years, and the current rate of base wage increases 
shows it lagging behind inflation.

"Pay can tell us a lot about today's choppy hiring. To understand hiring 
patterns, you have to look deeply into where pay growth is accelerating, 
where it's slowing and for whom," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at 
ADP.

"Once predictable wage growth has been overtaken by complexities of 
demographic change, persistent inflation and AI's effects on jobs," 
Richardson said.