Employment in the US private sector rose by 324,000 jobs in July with the leisure/hospitality sector leading the way, according to the ADP National Employment Report released today. However, the report also found that annual pay growth slowed to 6.2% year over year, its slowest pace since November 2021.

“The economy is doing better than expected, and a healthy labor market continues to support household spending,” Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said in a press release. “We continue to see a slowdown in pay growth without broad-based job loss.”

ADP noted small and midsize businesses continued to drive job growth in July, gaining 237,000 and 138,000 jobs, respectively. On the flip side, large establishments lost 67,000 jobs in July.

The leisure/hospitality sector added the most jobs. Here are ADP’s estimates of employment growth by industry:

• Goods-producing, up 21,000
  • Natural resources/mining, up 48,000
  • Construction, up 9,000
  • Manufacturing, down 36,000
• Service-providing, up 303,000
  • Trade/transportation/utilities, up 30,000
  • Information, up 36,000
  • Financial activities, down 5,000
  • Professional/business services, up 5,000
  • Education/health services, up 12,000
  • Leisure/hospitality, up 201,000
  • Other services, up 24,000

The total number of jobs added in June was revised downward to 455,000 from 497,000. 

The ADP National Employment Report, produced by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, uses ADP’s anonymized and aggregated payroll data of more than 25 million US employees to provide a representative picture of the labor market. The report details the current month’s total private employment change and weekly job data from the previous month.