The four-week average of hiring jumped in the week ending April 4 to 54.75K. That's the highest since the survey was launched in September.
These are high-frequency numbers so they're prone to large adjustments but if employment continues to rise, there is little chance of the Fed cutting rates.
For background, the NER Pulse is a weekly private-sector employment tracker launched in late 2025 by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. It serves as a high-frequency companion to the long-running monthly ADP National Employment Report (NER), which has delivered snapshots of U.S. private-sector hiring for nearly two decades and is built on anonymized payroll data covering more than 26 million U.S. employees — roughly one in six private-sector workers.
ADP positioned the new release as a response to an economy being reshaped in real time by AI adoption, demographic shifts, and short-term business cycle volatility — conditions in which a once-a-month reading can miss meaningful turning points. A lot can happen in a month, and high-frequency data helps distinguish a momentary dip from a genuine trend change.
Methodologically, the NER Pulse estimates the week-over-week change in employment using a four-week moving average, with figures seasonally adjusted and carrying a two-week lag to allow for more complete data. It publishes every Tuesday at 8:15 a.m. ET, except during weeks when the monthly NER is released, and includes 12 weeks of historical data.
Recent readings show hiring momentum building. The April 14 release reported an average gain of 39,250 jobs per week for the four weeks ending March 28 — the fourth straight week of strong job creation. Today's reading extends that streak further, with the four-week average climbing to 54,750 jobs per week, the strongest pace in months.
