Friday will be the first Friday of a new month, and that means a new jobs report. But today economists got the first crack at reading the labor market tea leaves. ADP’s July report on private sector employment showed around 100,000 new jobs were created in July. Most of those — about 70% — were in the services sector.

ADP’s report showed more growth in hospitality and leisure than any other industry — 46,000 new jobs. That comes with a caveat.

“It doesn't necessarily tell us that these jobs are going to stick around,” said Alí Bustamante with the University of New Orleans. “It doesn't also tell us that these jobs are particularly good or high paying jobs.” 

Greg Wright with the University of California, Merced, said although job growth in July was concentrated in lower-wage service industries, the overall picture was mixed.

“That was even actually somewhat offset by losses in education and health services, which tend to be somewhat better types of jobs,” he said.

Education and health lost some 38,000 jobs and it’s unclear whether that’s just a blip.

“There's been, you know, reductions in government funding at various levels, in health and in education, mostly at the kind of university level,” Wright said.

On the other hand, the financial services sector saw some growth.

“Hiring continues, but it's done more at a slower pace,” said Mike Steinitz with the talent firm Robert Half.

He said companies are focused on specific skill sets — employees that can improve efficiency by modernizing tech platforms and analyzing investments.

“There's a lot of needs for people to come in and analyze that data and figure out what buckets they should go into,” Steinitz said.

While it’s easy to look at the overall hiring numbers as good news, Daniel Hornung with the Urban Institute, said it’s still part of a slowing that’s been coming out of last year’s strong labor market. 

“The question is, you know whether that slowing is going to accelerate and stop basically,” Hornung said.

He’s especially concerned about how tariff policy might hurt the labor market.