ADP: Small business hiring picked up moderately in April

NEW YORK – Small business hiring picked up moderately last month as owners held to their strategy of cautiously adding to their payrolls.

That report comes from payroll company ADP, which counted 62,000 new jobs at its customers with up to 49 employees. The April number rebounded from a downwardly revised 42,000 in March.

Small company owners are hiring more cautiously than companies overall. Businesses of all sizes added a robust 204,000 jobs last month, the sixth straight month that 200,000 or more jobs were created, ADP said. Small businesses have added an average of nearly 66,000 jobs over that time, but since the start of this year, they’ve averaged more than 56,000 as hiring slowed.

In the same period a year earlier, they created on average 82,000 jobs a month.