Private employers added 145,000 jobs and annual pay jumped 6.9 percent in March, according to a monthly report from payroll processing firm ADP. That is down from 261,000 in February and below estimates of 210,000.
“Our March payroll data is one of several signals that the economy is slowing,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Employers are pulling back from a year of strong hiring and pay growth, after a three-month plateau, is inching down.”
The report comes one day after a federal report showed job openings falling below 10 million for the first time in two years, when a historically tight labor market left employers struggling to fill positions.
Some of the biggest job gains were in resources and mining, which added 47,000 jobs, and trade, transportation, and utilities, which added 56,000 jobs. Professional and business services, meanwhile, shed 46,000 jobs, and financial services lost 51,000.
Annual pay growth for job stayers also fell from 7.2 percent to 6.9 percent, which remains historically high, while pay growth for job changers fell from 14.4 percent to 14.2 percent.
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Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
