WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- A report released Wednesday showed that the U.S. private sector added 122,000 jobs in December, as the job market continued to cool.
The latest National Employment Report was produced by Automatic Data Processing (ADP), in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
The latest data showed that job growth in the private sector slowed compared to previous months. In November, the total number of jobs added remained unchanged at 146,000, while companies added a downwardly revised 184,000 jobs in October.
"The labor market downshifted to a more modest pace of growth in the final month of 2024, with a slowdown in both hiring and pay gains," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
Employment in manufacturing shrank for the third straight month, with a loss of 11,000 jobs, according to the report.
"Health care stood out in the second half of the year, creating more jobs than any other sector," Richardson noted.
Year-over-year pay growth for job-stayers slowed to 4.6 percent, the slowest pace of gains since July 2021, the report showed. Pay growth for job-changers was 7.1 percent, a slight decline from November.
The ADP report came two day before the crucial monthly employment report released by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, which will include employment data from both the private sector and the government.
