The March ADP Report Is Out & Small Businesses Carried the Whole Thing… Again
By industry, the pattern is equally familiar. Education and health services added 58,000 jobs. Construction added 30,000. Between those two sectors, you’d have a positive report. Everything else was a mixed picture at best. Trade, transportation, and utilities lost 58,000 jobs in a single month, a number that’s hard to dismiss and almost certainly reflects tariff uncertainty working its way through supply chains. Manufacturing shed another 11,000. Regionally, the South added 101,000 jobs while the Northeast and Midwest combined to lose 55,000, a geographic split that’s been a consistent feature of this recovery that isn’t quite recovering.
The Raise You Used to Get for Switching Jobs Has Nearly Disappeared
Revelio Labs’ new analysis of white-collar labor market data puts hard numbers on something workers have been feeling for a while. Switching jobs used to be the most reliable way to get a significant raise. That is no longer true.
The share of job switches that came with a 10% or larger pay increase peaked at around 54% in 2022, an outlier year by any measure. By 2025, that figure had dropped to roughly 41%. The financial case for making a move has weakened considerably, and it’s pulled mobility down with it. Entry-level workers have taken the hardest hit: their rate of external job transitions is now down roughly 40% compared to 2019 levels. Mid- and senior-level workers have seen pullbacks too, but nothing that steep.
Women Hold More U.S. Jobs Than Men; They Also Face the Most AI Risk
New analysis from ZipRecruiter’s research team, incorporating data from the Brookings Institution, tells two stories at once. Women now outnumber men in nonfarm employment by 162,000 positions, a record high. And according to Brookings, 86% of the 6.1 million U.S. workers who face both high AI exposure and low ability to adapt are women, concentrated in clerical and administrative roles.
The training gap makes it worse. Only 14% of women in the workforce say they’ve received extensive AI training from their employer, compared to nearly 24% of men. And 57% of women say they rarely or never use AI at work. That combination (highest exposure, least preparation) is exactly the wrong place to be as AI reshapes the tasks that define those roles. Regarding job market confidence, 69.5% of women say they’re confident they could find a comparable job within three months if needed, compared with 83.1% of men. The gap is notable and consistent with what other AI displacement research has been showing about the uneven distribution of risk.
There’s a meaningful countertrend worth noting. Women are moving into skilled trades at an accelerating pace. Women’s employment in transportation, warehousing, and utilities is up 31% since 2019, with young women under 24 driving that growth. Women’s employment in construction is up 16.5% over the same period. The trades offer real job security in a market where clerical and administrative work faces structural pressure. That’s a wise pivot, and the data suggests a growing number of women are making it, with or without much help from employers.
The employer takeaway here isn’t subtle. A workforce where women hold the majority of jobs, but receive less than half the AI training men do, is not a strategic position. It’s a liability. Workers who don’t develop AI skills now won’t be ready for roles that require them. That’s a performance problem, a retention problem, and eventually a hiring problem. Don’t wait for employees to figure it out on their own.
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Reach out and see how we can help.
Oracle Just Laid Off Up to 30,000 People With a 6 a.m. Email
Oracle began executing what analysts believe is the largest layoff in the company’s history on March 31. Investment bank TD Cowen estimates the cuts will affect between 20,000 and 30,000 employees (roughly 18% of Oracle’s global workforce of approximately 162,000 people) across the U.S., India, Canada, Mexico, and other countries.
The way it was done is worth addressing directly. Employees received termination emails at approximately 6 a.m. local time from “Oracle Leadership.” No conversation with a manager. No heads-up from HR. System access was cut immediately. For workers who had given years to the company, this is how it ended. There is no good way to deliver a mass layoff, but there are better ways than this, and Oracle chose not to use any of them.
The financial logic is straightforward, even if the execution was cold. TD Cowen estimates the cuts will free between $8 and $10 billion in cash flow to fund Oracle’s aggressive AI data center buildout, which carries an estimated $156 billion capital requirement. Oracle disclosed a $2.1 billion restructuring charge in its most recent SEC filing. All of this is happening at a company that posted a 95% jump in net income last quarter, reaching $6.13 billion. Oracle is not cutting because it’s failing. It’s cutting because it made an enormous bet on AI infrastructure and is eliminating tens of thousands of jobs to fund it. We’ve tracked this pattern throughout 2026, profitable companies using AI investment as the rationale to shed headcount. Oracle is the biggest example yet. It won’t be the last.
If you’re looking for your next role after a layoff, or an employer navigating a tight talent market where the competition for skilled candidates just got stiffer, we’re here to help.
Frequently Asked Questions
Private employers added 62,000 jobs overall, but the growth was entirely driven by small businesses with fewer than 20 employees, which added 112,000 jobs. Medium and large employers were net negative. Healthcare added 58,000 jobs and construction added 30,000, together accounting for essentially all meaningful growth.
The data says probably not, at least not for the raise alone. The share of job switches delivering a 10% or larger pay increase has dropped from about 54% in 2022 to roughly 41% in 2025. Job-changers are still seeing about 6.6% annual wage growth, but that premium has shrunk considerably and continues to decline.
Brookings Institution research finds that 86% of the 6.1 million workers facing both high AI exposure and low adaptive capacity are women, concentrated in clerical and administrative roles. The problem is compounded by a training gap (only 14% of women report receiving extensive AI training from their employer, versus 24% of men), leaving many in high-risk roles without the skills to navigate a transition.
Oracle posted a 95% jump in net income last quarter, so this isn’t a distressed-company story. The cuts are being made to free up $8–10 billion in cash flow to fund a massive AI data center buildout. It’s a capital allocation decision, profitable operations being downsized to finance an infrastructure bet.
View Full Transcript
March 2026 ADP Report: 62,000 jobs added, but small businesses did all the work
Today’s workforce news and headlines include new research that shows women once again hold the majority of US jobs but face the highest risk from AI replacing them. We’ll also talk about the disappearing paycheck bonus that used to reward workers for switching jobs. But first, ADP’s employment report from March came out this morning. It shows private employers added 62,000 jobs. That sounds okay, but when you look at who’s actually doing the hiring, the picture gets a lot more complicated.
Here’s the data. Small businesses with fewer than 20 employees added 112,000 jobs. But that means medium and large companies were cutting more than they were hiring. Medium-sized companies lost 20,000 positions and large employers cut 4,000. By industry, healthcare continues to carry the market. They added 58,000 jobs and construction added 30,000. But trade, transportation, and utilities lost 58,000, and that’s just in a single month. Manufacturing lost 11,000. Regionally, the South added 101,000 jobs, but the Northeast and Midwest combined to lose 55,000. Turning to worker pay, those who stayed in their jobs saw 4.5% growth year over year, which is unchanged for the third straight month, and workers who changed jobs saw a 6.6% gain.
According to ADP’s chief economist Nella Richardson, overall hiring is steady, but job growth continues to favor certain industries, including healthcare. The takeaway from this report is just more of what we’ve seen for months. Jobs aren’t being added at any significant pace, and two sectors are doing all the work. Healthcare continues to shine and construction is doing well. Now, we saw a little bit of a dip in construction early in the year, but that was due to weather constraints. The one alarming thing from this report is, because for the most part it didn’t surprise me at all, but seeing the trade and transportation sector losing 58,000 jobs, that’s worth paying attention to. I suspect it’s due to all of the tariff uncertainty, but worth watching as we go forward for sure.
Now, the third big data point this week is coming on Friday when the BLS releases a monthly jobs report. Who knows what we’ll see there? What kind of revisions we’re going to be looking at, no telling, but stay tuned. I will share it as soon as it comes out.
The switching jobs pay premium has shrunk to near-historic lows
Now, for our next story, we’re going to talk more about what happens when you change jobs. We just talked about it a little bit in the ADP report, but switching jobs used to be the fastest way to get a big raise, and that is changing fast. According to Revelio Labs, the share of job switches that came with a 10% or larger raise peaked at about 54% in 2022. Those were crazy times, so that was an anomaly for sure.
But by 2025, that had dropped to 41%. Entry-level workers have the worst. Their mobility is down roughly 40% compared to 2019. And when companies do hire, they’re raising the bar. The typical new hire now brings about two extra years of experience compared to before the pandemic. So we’ve seen that in all the data. Entry-level workers are getting crushed right now. Companies are placing higher expectations on what they call entry-level work. That’s a big mess for sure. And also, promotions are slowing down. So workers are being squeezed from both sides. It’s harder to move up inside your company, and there’s less financial reward for leaving.
And this connects directly to the ADP data that shows a pay premium for job changers at 6%, or should I say only 6% compared to what job changers have been able to get historically. And the trend line is clear. The premium shrinking two years ago, switching jobs was almost guaranteed to come with a big raise. Now only about 40% of job changers deliver a double-digit bump. So if you’re thinking about making a move right now, salary alone probably won’t justify that change. Make sure you consider the full picture.
Women hold the majority of U.S. jobs and face the greatest AI risk
Let’s move on to our next story, which is both good and bad for women. Doesn’t every story seem to come with that these days? It’s kind of good, but when you dig a little deeper, not so much. Women now outnumber men in non-farm jobs by 162,000 positions, but new research says they’re also the most exposed to AI disruption. According to Brookings Institution research, 86% of the 6.1 million workers with the highest AI exposure and lowest ability to adapt are women. They’re concentrated in clerical and administrative roles.
Only 14% of women have received extensive AI training from their employer, while for men, it’s 24%. And 57% of women rarely or never use AI at work. That is something that definitely needs to change. Now, when it comes to finding a new job, women aren’t as confident there either. 69.5% are confident they could find a comparable one in three months compared to 83.1% of men. The data also shows women are increasingly considering moving into skilled trades. That’s a wise move. We know that supply in that space is not keeping up with demand already, and it’s only going to get worse. So that is an area of great career opportunity. But I’ll close by saying so is AI. We know that AI is only going to become more prevalent in the workplace.
It already is, but it’s going to increase to a significant degree. So this data shows that employers aren’t doing enough training. But don’t rely on your employer. No one should. It is incumbent upon you to take that responsibility into your own hands. Forget what your employer should be doing. It’s what they’re actually doing that matters. And you can’t control that, but you can control your own learning and development. So please take advantage of all the free tools and resources.
Oracle layoffs: 30,000 jobs cut via 6 a.m. email to fund AI data centers
And finally, for today, Oracle started laying off up to 30,000 workers yesterday, which is roughly 18% of its overall workforce. And this is just bad. I mean, that’s bad enough, but the employees received termination emails at 6 a.m. from quote Oracle leadership. No heads up from a manager, no conversation, and their system access was cut on the spot. I mean, that is cold. Look, there’s no great way to do this, but there’s certainly better ways to do it, and this was not it. Oracle claims that they need the cash to fund you guessed it, AI data center build-out. TD Cohen estimates the layoffs will free between eight and ten billion dollars.
So this is a money move. This is just the next big company we’ve seen this year to do it. There’s been a long and growing list of them, but really uh really disappointed to see how they deliver this message. Uh, those messages, that’s just gross, and really tells you everything you need to know about how some companies view their employees right now. That’s it for today.
Fun fact: A water slide tester is a real job
But before we go, here’s your fun fact. There is a real job called a water slide tester. It involves checking quote splash factor and safety. A water slide tester. Now that sounds fun if you’re 16. Well, it sounds fun now, but I just I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I don’t think that would pay the bills very well. Just a thought. I don’t have the salary data for it. But I’m guessing it’s it’s it’s probably not very high. But it would be fun. So if you want to pursue it, go nuts. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. Please like, subscribe, share with anyone who you think might be interested, and I will look forward to talking to you tomorrow.
