Employment data show losses for March but weather figured into the numbers

Financial markets fluctuated throughout the morning after news that employers unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs in March, a slight improvement over February's 24,000, according to a report released Wednesday by Automatic Data Processing Inc.

While concerns remained that the job market isn't rebounding as economists have predicted, ADP clarified that the job losses may be exaggerated by bad weather in February and their numbers were likely weaker than those expected Friday from the Labor Department.

"Today's figure does not incorporate a weather-related rebound that could be present in this months BLS data," according to the report, which also doesn't include any federal hiring for the 2010 Census. For those reasons, ADP said "it is reasonable to expect that Friday's employment figure from BLS will be stronger than today's ADP estimate."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report on April 2 is expected to show up to 200,000 jobs added in March, the most in three years, according to economists' estimates. But about half of those hires would be by the Census Bureau.

ADP's report showed large businesses, those with more than 500 workers lost 7,000 jobs while employers with fewer than 50 workers dropped 12,000 jobs.

In March, construction employment declined by 43,000 job, the smallest since July 2008 but almost unchanged from February's 44,000.