December private payrolls crush expectations

The latest private payroll report from ADP showed a larger-than-expected increase in jobs during the month of December.

Private payrolls jumped by 257,000, way more than the 198,000 that was expected by economists.

Job gains were evenly spread across small, medium, and large businesses in December.

By industry, the largest number of jobs were added in the professional/business services sector and trade/transportation/utilities work.

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."

As we've noted, however, a number of economists argue that this report holds little predictive value for Friday's official payroll report.

Expectations for the government number is for the economy to add 200,000 jobs in December.