Investing.com - U.S. private sector employers added 230,000 jobs in September, well above economists' expectations, a report by a payrolls processor ADP showed on Thursday.
Economists had expected the ADP nonfarm payrolls report to show a gain of 187,000 jobs.
Private sector payrolls increased by an upwardly revised 168,000 in the previous month.
“The labor market continues to impress,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Both the goods and services sectors soared. The professional and business services industry and construction served as key engines of growth. They added almost half of all new jobs this month.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “The job market continues to power forward. Employment gains are broad-based across industries and company sizes. At the current pace of job creation, unemployment will fall into the low 3%’s by this time next year.”
The ADP figures come ahead of the Labor Department's more comprehensive non-farm payrolls report on Friday, which includes both public and private-sector employment.