Small Businesses Cut 6 Million Jobs from March to April


april 2020 adp small business report

The latest ADP National Employment Report shares some shocking numbers.

It underscores the impact the coronavirus pandemic response has on businesses of all sizes.

Nationwide, 20.2 million less people are working right now. And small businesses aren’t immune to these losses.

“Job losses of this scale are unprecedented.  The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession,” says Ahu Yildirmaz, of ADP Research Institute.

April 2020 ADP Small Business Report

The numbers in the latest ADP Small Business Employment Report are just as shocking.

More than 6 million small business jobs were lost in the last month. Of course, many of these jobs were lost temporarily, presumably. In states across the country, particularly the largest states in population, many small businesses were ordered closed by state governments. If they weren’t closed, they had to drastically alter their business operations. Restaurants can’t serve sit-down meals and must do delivery or take-out orders instead. Offices have to figure out how to switch to remote working plans.

And in many cases, small businesses simply had to tell employees to go home and file for unemployment.

Of the 6,005,000 less jobs from March to April, the smallest businesses were hit hardest. In companies with between 1-19 employees, more than 3.3 million people are out of work. Companies with between 20-44 employees lost more than 2.6 million jobs, per the ADP report.

Service-providing businesses lost the most small business jobs by sector, the report reveals. More than 4.5 million of the 6 million jobs lost were service providers.

Check out the ADP Small Business Report for April 2020:

april 2020 adp small business report

ADP National Franchise Report – April 2020

Franchise businesses didn’t suffer as many job losses from March to April.

Many of these businesses stayed open throughout the pandemic response.

But again, like others, franchise businesses weren’t immune to the coronavirus pandemic.

ADP reports 1.08 million jobs lost at franchise businesses nationwide in the last month.

Nearly half of those jobs, 500,200 of them, got eliminated at restaurants. Auto parts and automobile dealers suffered the second-most losses from March to April. More than 167,000 of their employees are out of work right now.

Check out more details here:

april 2020 adp small business report

National Report

The latest ADP National Employment report reveals much of the same. And it shows big businesses suffered right alongside the small. In fact, more than 14 million Americans lost jobs at mid-size and large businesses from March to April.

The industries hit hardest by the losses are construction (2.47 million job losses) and leisure and hospitality (8.6 million losses).

This infographic on the report contains more details on the grim jobs data.

READ MORE: 

Images: ADP

2 Comments ▼

Michael Guta Michael Guta is the Assistant Editor at Small Business Trends and currently manages its East African editorial team. Michael brings with him many years of content experience in the digital ecosystem covering a wide range of industries. He holds a B.S. in Information Communication Technology, with an emphasis in Technology Management.

2 Reactions
  1. Ouch! Particularly the high number from very small businesses (1-19 employees). Unfortunately I wonder how many of these businesses simply won’t reopen at all.

  2. This s quite saddening. So many people are losing their jobs because of the crisis. Things will definitely change in the entire world. It is applicable notjust for business.