ADP is the largest private payroll, outsourced HR company and they have been so gracious to tabulate up employment estimates from being in this business.

Their May employment report has some not so great news.

Nonfarm private employment decreased 532,000 from April to May 2009 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report®. The estimated change of
employment from March to April was revised by 54,000, from a decline of 491,000 to a decline of 545,000.

Monthly employment losses in April and May averaged 539,000. This is a notable improvement over the first three months of the year, when monthly losses averaged 691,000.
Nevertheless, despite some recent indications that economic activity is stabilizing, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to decline for at least several more months, although perhaps not as rapidly as during the last six months.

What got hammered (relatively speaking here) are service sector jobs in small businesses (less than 500 employees).

Here's one interesting statistic from ADP, Businesses with less than 50 workers have shed 2,125,000 jobs since July 2008.

Since January 2008, the U.S. lost 5.7 million jobs, with the addition of the ADP numbers and my resources correct.

So, this implies that about 37% of all job losses are coming from small business. Small businesses with less than 50 employees represents about 42% of all employment in the United States.

So anyone else believe these numbers imply Mom & Pop operations are being wiped out?

The Federal Reserve testified today that these unemployment numbers will continue for the next few months on top of things.

How green is your valley? Brown dirt as far as the eye can see.