US private sector employers added 107,000 jobs in January, ADP said Wednesday.

That was far fewer than expected, and with the obvious caveat that it won’t matter in the event NFP contradicts it on Friday, the release offered more evidence of a slowdown in the previously bulletproof US labor market.

The range of estimates for the headline print was 80,000 to 179,000. 29 economists ventured a guess.

If you look at the last four months (the last six months, really), the trend is pretty clear: December’s 158,000 gain was an anomaly. The pace of hiring has slowed.

Of course, that’s arguably a good thing to the extent labor market resilience is a factor in sustaining still-elevated inflation in the services sector.

Job gains in January were distributed pretty evenly across firm sizes. Every industry with the exception of Information added jobs, with leisure and hospitality leading the way. Despite the “low” headline print, the report looked pretty good.

“Progress on inflation has brightened the economic picture despite a slowdown in hiring and pay,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s Chief Economist, said.

ADP’s “pay insights” showed YoY pay growth for job switchers decelerated sharply in January from 8% to 7.2%.

The rate of wage growth for job “stayers” also slipped, but by far less. As a result, the gap (conceptually the reward for quitting) narrowed meaningfully. That’s consistent with fewer quits as shown in the JOLTS report on Tuesday.

All in all, this was a favorable release for the Fed and points to disinflation, with the obligatory (and repetitive) caveat that it only matters to the extent it’s “confirmed” by January’s NFP report.

“Wages adjusted for inflation have improved over the past six months,” Richardson went on, in the press release. “And the economy looks like it’s headed toward a soft landing.”