The latest nationwide employment report released by the salary management company ADP shows that private sector added 22,000 jobs in January 2026, which is lower than ADP’s previous estimate of job additions.
On February 4th, ADP published the January ADP National Employment Report, which was completed in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. The report indicated that the private sector added 22,000 jobs in January with a 4.5% annual wage growth. Dr. Nela Richardson, Chief Economist at ADP, stated in the report, “Employment growth in 2025 was slow, with private sector adding 398,000 jobs, lower than the 771,000 jobs added in 2024. Despite the significant slowdown in job growth over the past three years, wage growth has remained steady.”
The report described and analyzed the employment situation in January, stating that the overall recruitment market was subdued, with the healthcare industry performing well by adding 74,000 new job opportunities. Since March 2024, employment in the manufacturing industry has been declining every month. The main factors contributing to the slowdown in hiring were the manufacturing industry, professional, and business services.
In terms of the company size breakdown for January 2026, job positions in small companies with 1-19 employees increased by 30,000, while small companies with 20-49 employees saw a decrease of 30,000 job positions. For medium-sized private enterprises, there was an increase of 37,000 job positions in companies with 50-249 employees and an increase of 4,000 in companies with 240-499 employees. Large private enterprises with over 500 employees experienced an overall decrease of 18,000 job positions.
ADP is one of the world’s largest salary and human resources management service providers, headquartered in New Jersey. The ADP National Employment Report is based on anonymized weekly wage data of over 26 million private sector employees in the United States, enabling independent analysis of the labor market.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was originally scheduled to release the U.S. employment report for January last Friday (January 30th). However, due to Congress failing to pass a funding bill before the government shutdown deadline, BLS funding was halted over the weekend. A BLS spokesperson mentioned that the agency suspended some operations until the government reopened on Tuesday (February 3rd), resulting in the rescheduling of the employment report release. The report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on January 9th indicated that in December 2025, the U.S. added 50,000 non-farm jobs.