August Employment Trends
Private-sector employers added 38,000 jobs in August 2026, marking the slowest month of growth for the United States economy since January. The data, published by the ADP Research Institute alongside the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, highlights a cooling labor market. This number follows a slight upward revision of July's figures, which moved from 44,000 to 46,000.
Sector performance remained split during the period. Manufacturing, professional services, and information sectors all reported net job losses. Meanwhile, education and health care, construction, and leisure and hospitality segments provided gains. Large businesses with 500 or more employees accounted for the majority of the growth, adding 34,000 positions.
Shifting Pay Dynamics
Pay growth for American workers showed signs of deceleration across multiple categories. Base pay rose 3.2 percent year-over-year, while gross pay increased by 4.7 percent. These figures reflect a cooling trend that has persisted for roughly four years. Liv Wang, lead data scientist at ADP Research, noted that wage growth for lower-paid workers has lost momentum and now trails pre-pandemic levels.
Job-changers continue to see higher compensation increases than those who stay in their current roles. Base pay for job-changers rose 4.7 percent, compared to 3.0 percent for job-stayers. Gross pay disparities are even wider, with those switching jobs seeing a 7.3 percent increase versus 4.4 percent for those remaining in their current positions.
Analytics and Economic Implications
ADP launched an updated version of its Pay Insights platform concurrent with this release. This tool offers granular data across 56 metropolitan areas and categorizes pay trends by demographics, employer size, and sector. These metrics provide a high-frequency look at the state of the U.S. labor market, using anonymized payroll data from over 26 million employees.
Dr. Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, emphasized that wage data remains a critical indicator for understanding current hiring patterns. She stated that predictable wage growth has been replaced by the realities of demographic shifts, sustained inflation, and the integration of artificial intelligence into daily operations. Analysts and policymakers use these figures to monitor labor-market tightness and inflationary pressures as they evaluate the broader economic trajectory.