by Calculated Risk on 1/06/2016 08:19:00 AM

From ADP:

Private sector employment increased by 257,000 jobs from November to December according to the December ADP National Employment Report® ... The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
...
Goods-producing employment rose by 23,000 jobs in December, well up from a downwardly revised -2,000 the previous month. The construction industry added 24,000 jobs, which was roughly in line with the 21,000 average monthly jobs gained for the year. Meanwhile, manufacturing stayed in positive territory for the second straight month adding 2,000 jobs.

Service-providing employment rose by 234,000 jobs in December, up from an upwardly revised 213,000 in November. ...

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Strong job growth shows no signs of abating. The only industry shedding jobs is energy. If this pace of job growth is sustained, which seems likely, the economy will be back to full employment by mid-year. This is a significant achievement, given that the last time the economy was at full employment was nearly a decade ago.”

This was well above the consensus forecast for 190,000 private sector jobs added in the ADP report. 

The BLS report for December will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 200,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in December.