U.S. private sector adds 147,000 jobs in October: ADP

The U.S. private sector added 147,000 jobs in October, said a private survey released Wednesday, the slowest pace since May this year.

U.S. private companies added 147,000 jobs in October, said the National Employment Report released jointly by Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and Moody's Analytics, based on a monthly survey.

The data is lower than the market expectation of 165,000 job gains. Private jobs added in September were revised up to 202,000 from the previous report of 154,000 increase.

In October small and medium-sized businesses accounted for more than half of the employment gains, adding 82,000 jobs, while large businesses with more than 500 employees added 64,000 jobs, according to the report.

"Job growth appears to be shifting from small to large companies due to the lessening impact the global economic environment had on large companies earlier in the year," said Ahu Yildirmaz, head of the ADP Research Institute.

"This is also true because large companies often have the resources to attract workers with better pay and benefit packages," said Yildirmaz.

Employment in the service sector rose by 165,000 jobs in October. Meanwhile, the goods-producing employment fell by 18,000 jobs in October.

"Job growth remains strong although the pace of growth appears to be slowing. Behind the slowdown is businesses' difficulty filling open positions," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics.

"However, there is some weakness in construction, education and mining," added Zandi.

The ADP survey studied data from private businesses with more than 23 million workers on payrolls but excludes government job growth. Enditem