We've got a fresh glimpse into the job market.

From Marketplace, I'm Sabrina Bennishoor in for David Bruncaccio.

ADP is a payroll processor, so they have a firsthand view onto who is hiring and who is firing,

and they tally that up each month, and the early results are in.

They estimate the economy added 63,000 jobs in February.

Laurence Idel Baker is an economist at New Hampshire-based ITR economics and is here to talk about it.

Good morning. Good morning. So the ADP employment report says we got 63,000 jobs last month.

This is, you know, just the perspective of one payroll processor, a big one, but it's not the

official jobs report. Nevertheless, what is the story about the labor market? This is telling.

Well, this was a beat on a headline basis. More jobs created than had been expected. However,

we're probably still feeling some of the shakiness from 2025 in these hiring decisions, but overall, it's a good report.

It shows that wages are still outpacing inflation, so that's good news for our consumer.

Things were really looking kind of gloomy late last year. Where do you think things are headed this year?

We are seeing more stability.

The consumer is in a pretty strong position.

Overall, manufacturing, the industrial economy are starting to show signs of life, starting

to show signs of pickup.

So we will see that feed through into more demand and into more need to hire more people.

We're not at a point yet where AI can completely replace it.

Last year, the story was all about just a few industries. Healthcare was doing a lot of work,

creating work for people. Is that still the case?

Healthcare is still one of the best performers. This report actually construction came in pretty

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