Private sector employment, excluding farming, fell by about 20,000 in the month of February, said a report released today by private firm Automatic Data. The report comes out a few days ahead of the government data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is due out on Friday. The Automatic Data numbers would mean that this February represented the lowest monthly drop in the private sector since the same month, 2008. However, the government report may look worse, if the later release date captures the effect from severe weather on the East Coast in the last few weeks. The total is estimated to result from a drop of about 10,000 people in large firms, a loss of about 18,000 workers in small businesses, and an 8,000 person increase in medium sized firms ? the first increase of any kind in quite some time.
See "Private sector employment falls by 20,000 in February, report says", Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2010