Smallest decline in six months, according to ADP employment index Private-sector employment in the United States fell by 491,000 jobs in April, the smallest decline since October, according to the ADP employment index released Wednesday. Improvement was widespread across industries, said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, the consulting firm that computes the index for payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. from hundreds of thousands of anonymous payroll reports. The index comes two days before the government releases its estimate of April nonfarm payrolls. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are looking for payrolls to drop by 580,000 in the government survey, which would be the smallest decline since October. The ADP index does not include government jobs. To get an apples-to-apples comparison with the Labor Department report, you have to add in about 12,000 jobs typically gained in the public sector. That suggests total payrolls fell by about 480,000 in April, compared with the MarketWatch consensus of 580,000 for the Labor Department's estimate. The March number was revised higher to a decline of 708,000 from a decline of 742,000. ADP provides payroll and human-resources services to about one in every six U.S. workers, serving more than 500,000 companies. The ADP sample is taken during the same week of the month as the government's survey, using similar methods.

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