AFP, Washington

Job growth in the US private sector soared past analysts’ expectations in October, payroll firm ADP said Wednesday, providing a snapshot of the key labor market as a government shutdown continues to freeze federal data releases.

Private sector employment jumped by 42,000 in October, ADP said, rebounding from a loss of 29,000 jobs in September.

Surveys of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal had expected lower growth of 22,000.

The ADP figures -- a private sector report -- is likely to attract renewed attention as it is one of few economic indicators released in recent weeks.

The world’s biggest economy, whose government remains in a shutdown, has for the past month or so delayed releasing official numbers on employment, trade, retail sales and others.

This has left policymakers and business owners in a fog.

“Private employers added jobs in October for the first time since July, but hiring was modest relative to what we reported earlier this year,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson.

The report also indicated that despite a rebound from two months of weak hiring, the uptick “wasn’t broad-based.”

Sectors leading the growth included education and health care, as well as trade, transportation and utilities.

But manufacturing lost jobs, as did the information sector, alongside professional and business services.

“ADP’s estimate suggests the labor market is continuing to cool gradually,” said Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

But he warned that other surveys have better track records of forecasting payrolls than ADP data.

With around 100,000 federal employees reaching the end of six-month deferred resignation schemes at the end of September, labor market slack likely continued to accumulate last month, Tombs said.

He anticipates that official data, if available soon, is therefore likely to encourage another Federal Reserve interest rate cut in December.

Year-on-year pay growth was flat in October from the previous month, said ADP on Wednesday.