U.S. small businesses added a net 53,000 jobs in September, according to the new Small Business Report from Automatic Data Processing Inc., the $8 billion human resources and payroll service.

This increase coincides with the SurePayroll September report here showing small businesses in California and nationwide hiring people and paying higher wages.

ADP defines small businesses as those with fewer than 50 employees. They accounted for 91 percent of the 58,000 new private-sector jobs in September. All the growth came in service businesses, which added 56,000 jobs while manufacturers cut 3,000 jobs.

Small businesses employed 50.8 million in September, 1.6 percent more than in September 2006.

Here’s how small business employment compares with the total private-sector jobs:

“This month’s … report suggests small businesses continued to hire at a moderate rate,” said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, which did the report for ADP. “The three-month average change in nonfarm private employment from July to September is 42,000, so September’s number represents a slight firming of employment growth among small businesses.”

The report is based on review of 383,000 ADP customers. Click here to read the entire report.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 6:11 am and is filed under Employees, Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.