Private Hiring Just Hit Its Fastest Pace in 15 Months, But Mid-Size Companies Didn’t Get the Memo
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Healthcare and education drove most of it. Education and health services alone added 61,000 jobs, more than half the total. Strip that sector out, and the picture looks considerably more modest. Trade, transportation, and utilities added 25,000. Construction contributed 10,000. Financial activities added 9,000. On the other side, professional and business services (the category that includes consulting, staffing, and accounting) lost 8,000 jobs. That’s a number worth watching. When companies pull back on those services, it often signals tighter budgets and a “do more with less” mentality spreading through corporate decision-making.
The size breakdown is where the most interesting tension lives. Small businesses (under 50 employees) added 65,000 jobs. Large companies (500+ employees) added 42,000. Mid-size companies, the 50- to 499-employee range that represents a huge swath of the American economy, added just 2,000. As ADP Chief Economist Dr. Nela Richardson put it: “Small and large employers are hiring, but we’re seeing softness in the middle. Large companies have resources to deploy, and small ones are the most nimble, both important advantages in a complex labor environment.” Mid-size employers don’t have enterprise cash reserves and don’t have small-business agility. They’re stuck between caution and commitment, and the April data reflects exactly that.
On pay: job-stayers saw 4.4% annual pay growth, a slight deceleration from March’s 4.5%. Job-changers held at 6.6%. The biggest pay gains for stayers were in financial activities (5.1%) and manufacturing (4.8%). The smallest employers (firms with 1 to 19 employees) gave the lowest raises at 2.5%. Regionally, the West led with 46,000 jobs added, followed by the South at 34,000, the Northeast at 18,000, and the Midwest at 11,000.
Friday’s BLS Employment Situation report will be the next major data point; economists are projecting approximately 55,000 new jobs, which would make the ADP number look robust by comparison. Whether the government data confirms the ADP momentum or tells a more cautious story will set the tone for hiring conversations heading into summer.
Freshworks Just Cut 11% of Its Staff. Its CEO Says AI Writes More Than Half Their Code.
The AI restructuring wave picked up another name yesterday. Freshworks, the business software company behind customer service and IT support tools, announced it’s cutting approximately 500 jobs, or 11% of its roughly 4,500-person workforce. CEO Dennis Woodside tied the decision directly to how deeply AI has changed how the company operates. “Over half of our code is written by AI,” he told Reuters, adding that automation has significantly reduced the “rote work that technology can take care of.”
This is the pattern that’s been building all year: revenue growing, headcount shrinking. Freshworks reported Q1 revenue of $228.6 million, up 16% year-over-year and ahead of estimates. Q2 guidance of $232 to $235 million also came in above consensus. The company is not struggling. It’s restructuring precisely because AI has changed the math on how many people it takes to build and run the product. The savings from merging sales teams, reducing management layers, and automating routine work will be reinvested in Freshservice, its AI-powered IT service management product. Layoffs.fyi puts total 2026 tech job losses at 92,462 as of this week. Atlassian cut roughly 10% last month for similar reasons.
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Frequently Asked Questions
ADP’s April National Employment Report shows private employers added 109,000 jobs, the fastest monthly pace since January 2025 and above economists’ expectations of 99,000. Education and health services led all sectors with 61,000 jobs added.
ADP’s data shows businesses with 50 to 499 employees added just 2,000 jobs in April, compared to 65,000 at small businesses and 42,000 at large companies. Mid-size employers lack both the cash reserves of large enterprises and the agility of small businesses, leaving them more cautious in an uncertain environment.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ April Employment Situation report releases Friday. Economists are projecting approximately 55,000 new jobs, well below ADP’s 109,000 reading. The two reports use different methodologies, so divergence between them is common.
Freshworks cut 11% of its workforce (about 500 people) because AI has reduced how many employees it needs to build and operate its products. CEO Dennis Woodside said more than half of the company’s code is now written by AI. Revenue grew 16% in Q1 2026, but the company can now generate that growth with a smaller team.
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