Job Growth Slowed In March, Survey Signals

By Mark Memmott

Published April 3, 2013 at 8:49 AM EDT

The scene at a job fair in Manhattan on March 6.

There were 158,000 more jobs on private employers' payrolls in March than in February, the latest ADP National Employment Report estimates.

The gain was less than economists expected, Reuters reports. They thought ADP would say there had been a 200,000-jobs increase.

Along with the data from last month, ADP also revised its figures for February and January. There was good and bad news in those changes:

-- "February's [previously reported] gain of 198,000 jobs was revised up by 39,000 to 237,000."

-- "January's [previously reported] 215,000 gain was revised down by 38,000 to 177,000."

The privately produced ADP report comes each month just before the widely watched unemployment and employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That agency's March report is due on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

A month ago, BLS said that public and private payrolls grew by 236,000 jobs in Febuary — while the nation's unemployment rate dipped by two-tenths of a point, to 7.7 percent.

Reuters says economists expect BLS will say there were 200,000 jobs added in March and that the jobless rate stayed at 7.7 percent.