US Private Payrolls Rise 86,000 in October, Beating the 69,000 Forecast

US private employers added 86,000 jobs in October, according to the ADP National Employment Report released on Wednesday, November 4. The gain beat the forecast of 69,000 from economists polled by Reuters, and it came in a report based on payroll records for more than 26 million US private sector workers.

The report was produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Sharecast, reporting the release and the Reuters poll, said the October result exceeded expectations for a 69,000 gain.

A second straight month at 86,000

October matched the revised figure for September. ADP revised September private sector job growth down to 86,000 from the 90,000 first reported, so October was a second consecutive month at the same level, and a second consecutive month of solid hiring on the revised numbers.

That steadiness is the main story in the release. Employers did not pull back in October, and the gain was not carried by one part of the economy. Hiring was spread across services, across regions of the job market covered by the survey, and across companies of every size.

Services carried the hiring

Services led the gain. Trade, transportation and utilities added 39,000 jobs, the largest increase among the sectors listed in the report. Education and health services added 28,000 jobs, and leisure and hospitality added 19,000.

One services group moved the other way. Professional and business services shed 27,000 jobs, a third straight month of losses for that group. The contrast sits inside the same report: customer facing and transport linked work kept growing in October, while office based professional services kept shrinking.

Employers of every size hired

The gains were spread by firm size as well. Mid sized firms added 33,000 jobs, small businesses added 28,000, and large companies added 24,000.

Dr. Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, pointed to that spread and to what job changers were offered. "Employers of all sizes were hiring last month, and our data suggests that job-changers were lured by a combination of bonuses, overtime, and more hours in addition to higher base pay. Taken together, earnings growth for these workers hit its fastest pace since March 2024," Richardson said, in comments reported by Kitco News from the ADP report.

Pay rose 3.2 percent on base, 4.7 percent on gross

ADP Pay Insights put base pay for private sector workers 3.2 percent higher than a year earlier. Gross pay rose 4.7 percent year over year. Those two figures cover different ground: base pay is the set rate, while gross pay also reflects the hours, overtime and bonuses Richardson described.

How the report is built, and what followed it

The ADP report is based on anonymized weekly payroll data covering more than 26 million US private sector employees. It is a payroll count from actual company records, published each month by ADP Research with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.

In market reaction coverage on November 4, Kitco News reported that gold prices held above $4,000 after the ADP release.

The next report is already scheduled. The November 2026 ADP National Employment Report is due on December 2, 2026 at 8:15 a.m. ET.