U.S. private sector job growth rebounds in September as hiring slows

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Private companies in the United States added 208,000 jobs in September, indicating continued job growth in a cooling labor market, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported Wednesday.

"We are continuing to see steady job gains," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. Annual pay was up 7.8 percent year over year, the report noted.

"While job stayers saw a pay increase, annual pay growth for job changers in September is down from August," said Richardson. The annual pay for job changers rose 15.7 percent, down from a revised 16.2 percent gain in August.

Job growth totaled 185,000 in August, slowing for a second straight month after a gain of nearly 270,000 jobs in July, the report showed.

In September, the goods-producing sector lost 29,000 jobs, with a decline of 13,000 jobs in manufacturing. In the service-providing sector, 237,000 jobs were added, with declines in information (-19,000) and financial activities (-16,000), the report showed.

Meanwhile, the number of job openings in the United States fell by 6.2 percent to 10.1 million by the end of August, indicating a cooling labor market amid rising interest rates and slower economic growth, the U.S. Labor Department reported Tuesday.

The largest decreases in job openings were in health care and social assistance (-236,000), other services (-183,000), and retail trade (-143,000), the report showed.