U.S. private sector payrolls grow more quickly than expected in July

U.S. private sector payrolls grew more quickly than anticipated last month, the results of a survey showed.

According to consultancy ADP, the private sector generated 324,000 jobs in July (consensus: 190,000).

"The economy is doing better than expected and a healthy labor market continues to support household spending," said Nela Richardson, ADP chief economist.

"We continue to see a slowdown in pay growth without broad-based job loss."

Hiring was strongest among smaller companies with mid-sized ones, those employing 50-249 employees, adding 152,000 people, those with 20-49 staff added 123,000 employees and the smallest corporations with 1-19 employees hired 114,000.

Large companies, or those with 500+ employees, shed 67,000 staff and those with between 250-499 staff another 14,000.

Natural Resources and Mining companies took on the most new workers, about 48,000, followed by Information with 36,000, and Trade, Transportation and Utilities at 30,000.

"Today’s print has no implications for our July forecast; we’re still looking for 275K headline payrolls and 225K private," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

"We expect job growth to slow over the next few months, tracking the decline in the NFIB’s hiring intentions measure, but the Homebase numbers drive our month-to-month forecast, and the July numbers look quite strong."