Investing.com - U.S. private employers added a far larger-than-forecast 202,000 jobs in December, according to a report by payrolls processor ADP on Wednesday. Economists had expected the report to show a gain of 160,000 jobs.
November's figure was revised to 124,000 from the 67,000 initially reported.
“As 2019 came to a close, we saw expanded payrolls in December,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “The service providers posted the largest gain since April,driven mainly by professional and business services. Job creation was strong across companies of all sizes, led predominantly by midsized companies.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Looking through the monthly vagaries of the data, job gains continue to moderate. Manufacturers, energy producers and small companies have been shedding jobs. Unemployment is low, but will begin to rise if job growth slows much further.”
The ADP numbers come ahead of the Labor Department's nonfarm payrolls report for December on Friday, which includes both public and private-sector employment.
Economists expect that report to show a gain of 164,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 3.5%.