US private employers added 98,000 jobs in June, according to ADP’s National Employment Report released on July 1. That number came in below the consensus forecast of 113,000 and marked a notable step down from May’s revised figure of 122,000.

Where the jobs went, and where they didn’t

Education and health services carried the load in June, adding 48,000 positions. That single sector accounted for nearly half of all new private jobs.

Trade, transportation, and utilities added 15,000 jobs. Financial activities contributed 14,000, and the information sector chipped in 7,000.

Then there’s leisure and hospitality, which continued to shed workers for the sixth straight month. Six consecutive months of job losses in a single sector isn’t a blip. It’s a trend.

May’s ADP number had been the strongest private payroll reading since January 2025. So June’s miss doesn’t just represent a soft month in isolation. It represents a sharp reversal from what had looked like building momentum.

What this means for the Fed and interest rates

Traders will be watching the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ official nonfarm payrolls report closely as a confirmation or contradiction of ADP’s signal. The ADP report has historically been an imperfect predictor of the government’s numbers, sometimes diverging significantly.

When job growth is concentrated in education and healthcare, two areas heavily influenced by government funding and demographic demand rather than pure economic vitality, it paints a different picture than broad-based gains across cyclical industries.

Crypto market implications

The mechanism works like this: jobs data shapes interest rate expectations, interest rate expectations shape the dollar’s strength, and the dollar’s strength influences how much capital flows into risk assets like crypto.

The leisure and hospitality weakness is worth watching for a different reason. That sector tends to correlate with consumer discretionary spending, which in turn correlates with retail crypto activity.