By Xavier Fontdegloria

The nonfarm private sector in the U.S. continued on its upward hiring trend in April, posting the strongest jobs gain since September 2020 on the back of the reopening of the economy.

Total U.S. nonfarm private employment rose by 742,000 in April, data from ADP National Employment Report showed Wednesday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal were expecting payrolls to rise by a higher 800,000.

In March, the U.S. private sector gained 565,000 jobs, up from an initial estimate of 517,000.

"The labor market continues an upward trend of acceleration and growth," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.

Payroll growth is set to surge over the next few months as millions of people are hired back into the hospitality, travel and retail sectors, economists say.

"Service providers have the most to gain as the economy reopens, recovers and resumes normal activities and are leading job growth in April," Ms. Richardson said

Job creation was widespread in April. Large businesses, those of at least 500 workers, created 277,000 jobs. Small businesses, with a maximum of 49 employees, registered 235,000 payroll gains and medium businesses, between 50 and 499 employees, added 230,000 jobs.

The service-providing sector created 636,000 jobs, particularly in the leisure and hospitality sector, which was hard-hit by the pandemic restrictions and added 237,000 jobs.

The goods-producing sector gained 106,000 payrolls, the data showed.

"While payrolls are still more than eight million jobs short of pre-Covid-19 levels, job gains have totaled 1.3 million in the last two months after adding only about one million jobs over the course of the previous five months," Ms. Richardson said.

The report, carried out by the ADP Research Institute along with Moody's Analytics, is based on data through the 12th of the month.

The U.S. Department of Labor is expected to release its April employment report, which covers the same period as the ADP National Employment Report, on Friday. Economists are expecting it to show nonfarm payrolls up by one million for the month and the unemployment rate down to 5.8%. The ADP series can diverge considerably from the Labor Department's data on a monthly basis.

Write to Xavier Fontdegloria at xavier.fontdegloria@wsj.com 


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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-05-21 0848ET