Private employers shed fewer jobs in November from October, marking the eighth straight monthly decline in private-sector job losses, a report Wednesday showed.
Private companies shed 169,000 jobs last month, fewer than the 195,000 jobs lost in October, suggesting some stabilization in the labor market as the economy emerges from recession, according to the ADP Employer Services report, jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.
The October fall was originally reported at 203,000.
The median of estimates from 30 economists surveyed by Reuters was for a decline of 155,000 private-sector jobs last month.
A slowdown in job losses boosts the chances that job growth could appear in early 2010. But the labor market remains fragile, which could be a drag on consumer spending and curb the pace of an economic rebound.
"The losses are still substantial,” Macroeconomic Advisers’ chairman Joel Prakken said on a conference call. "But these losses are diminishing every month.”
The ADP figures are seen by some analysts as a proxy for the government’s closely watched report on non-farm payrolls. The U.S. Labor Department will release its November labor report Friday at 8:30 a.m.
Analysts polled recently by Reuters projected U.S. payrolls likely shrank by 130,000 in November, compared with a 190,000 decline in October. The unemployment rate is forecast to be unchanged at 10.2 percent.
Earlier Wednesday, a separate report showed planned layoffs by U.S. companies in November shrank to the lowest level in nearly two years, also suggesting that corporate labor force cuts are tapering off even if actual hiring appears a distant prospect. .
The U.S. job market will likely start to grow early next year as the unemployment rate peaks, Macroeconomic’s Prakken said.
Prakken expects several more months of non-farm employment losses with the first positive number, indicating job growth, in February. That growth would be reported in March, he said.
He expected full U.S. employment, defined as an unemployment rate of 5 percent, would not be achieved until 2014.
In the interim nothing much can be done to stop peak unemployment reaching 10.4 or 10.5 percent, Prakken said.
And "most of the job creation will have to be in the private sector,” he said.
