Roseland-headquartered payroll giant ADP on Wednesday released its monthly National Employment Report revealing that private-sector employers added 122,000 jobs nationwide in May. The data, produced by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, signals steady growth and strong momentum heading into the summer hiring season.
The monthly data showed broad-based growth across almost all sectors, proving that employers of all sizes are looking to expand their staff.
“Hiring was more broad-based in May than we’ve seen in the last few years,” Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said. “The labor market continues to show sustained momentum going into the summer hiring season.”
The Northeast region added a total of 35,000 private-sector positions in May. Within that footprint, the Mid-Atlantic region—which includes New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—contributed a healthy 17,000 jobs to the nationwide total.
On a sector level, service-providing industries drove the vast majority of the gains, adding 114,000 jobs across the country. Education and health services led the pack with an increase of 57,000 positions, followed closely by trade, transportation, and utilities, which grew by 36,000. Conversely, the information sector saw the largest decline, shedding 9,000 positions.
Alongside job creation, ADP’s monthly Pay Insights data—which tracks more than 15 million individual pay changes—found that annual wage growth has remained resilient.
- Job-Stayers: Workers who remained in their current positions saw a steady 4.4% year-over-year median pay increase.
- Job-Changers: Those who switched employers experienced a higher median pay boost of 6.5%, though this represents a slight deceleration from April’s 6.6% clip.
Among workers who stayed in their jobs, the financial activities sector saw the strongest median annual pay increase at 5.1%, while manufacturing followed closely behind at 4.8%.
Despite tighter economic conditions, small establishments with fewer than 50 employees proved to be the primary engine for job creation in May, adding 67,000 positions. Large corporations with 500 or more employees added 40,000 jobs, while medium-sized businesses recorded a modest gain of 17,000.
The solid monthly performance comes as April’s total job gains were slightly revised downward from 109,000 to 105,000. ADP is scheduled to release its next national employment update on July 1, 2026.
