by Calculated Risk on 1/05/2012 08:15:00 AM

ADP reports:

Private-sector employment increased by 325,000 from November to December on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report® released today. The ADP National Employment Report, created by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP®), in partnership with Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC, is derived from actual payroll data and measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month. The estimated gain in employment from October to November was revised down slightly to 204,000 from the initially reported 206,000.

This was well above the consensus forecast of an increase of 160,000 private sector jobs in December. The BLS reports on Friday, and the consensus is for an increase of 150,000 payroll jobs in December, on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis.

Government payrolls have been shrinking by about 24,000 per month this year. So this suggests around 325,000 private nonfarm payroll jobs added, minus 24,000 government workers - or around 301,000 total jobs added in December. Of course ADP hasn't been very useful in predicting the BLS report.