Roseland, N.J. – The ADP National Employment Report for August shows private sector employment increased by 54,000 jobs in August, and annual pay was up 4.4%. The report released this morning showed a slowdown in private sector employment compared with July’s revised increase of 106,000 jobs.

The report findings reveal that manufacturing lost 7,000 jobs while trade, transportation and utilities lost 17,00 jobs. Leisure, hospitality and construction performed well despite a broader month-on-month slowdown in hiring. Professional and business services added 15,000 jobs.

Medium-sized establishments added the most jobs leading with 25,000, larger establishments added 18,000 jobs while smaller businesses employed 12,000 people.

Chief Economist at ADP, Nela Richardson said the year started with strong job growth, but that momentum has been impacted by uncertainty. “A variety of things could explain the hiring slowdown, including labor shortages, skittish consumers and AI disruptions,” she said.

Jin Ko, senior research associate at Mann, Armistead & Epperson, said the losses in manufacturing jobs can be credited to any number of reasons, but uncertainties in current trade reforms and their impact are having, potentially, the largest effect.

“Many manufacturers seem to have adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ mentality, erring on the side of caution, holding off on new hires and working with the workforce that they currently have in place,” Ko said. “Immigration is another import factor. Immigrants are believed to make up approximately 20% of the manufacturing labor force in the U.S., and current immigration policies and the uncertainty surrounding such policies are also creating potential shortages.”

The ADP report is produced by the ADP Research collaboration with Stanford Digital Economy Lab (Standford Lab). It presents independent measures of the U.S labor market based on ADP payroll data covering more than half a million companies with more than 25 million employees.

In addition, the report presents regular measures of earnings for defined samples or segments of the U.S. workforce. ADP payroll data includes payroll transactions data – when a person is paid and how much – as well as as administrative data on who is on the company payroll, even if they are not paid in the current pay period.