ADP Data Confirms a Slowdown?

A 2% loss day of the Dow Jones Index coincided with disappointing ADP and ISM data. ADP estimates private payrolls rose only 38,000 in May which is far below expectations for 210,000. The ADP national employment report is computed from a subset of ADP records that in the last six months of 2008, represented approximately 400,000 U.S. business clients and approximately 24 million U.S. employees working in all private industrial sectors. The data are collected for pay periods that can be interpolated to include the week of the 12th of each month, and processed with statistical methodologies similar to those used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to compute employment from its monthly survey of establishments. (Definition of Wall Street Journal)

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