US private sector employers added 146,000 jobs on net last month, ADP said Wednesday, as this week’s raft of key US macro releases continued to float in.

That was in line with consensus. Economists expected 150,000 or so. October’s headline was revised sharply lower to 184,000 from the initially-reported 233,000.

With August’s relatively weak print dropping out of the sample, the three-month moving average rose to 163,000, the highest since June.

ADP hasn’t been a reliable predictor of the government’s jobs report in the post-pandemic era, so it’d be a mistake to read too much into the release on that score.

“While overall growth for the month was healthy, industry performance was mixed,” ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said. She flagged a very poor showing in the manufacturing sector, which shed 26,000 jobs in November. That’s indicative of a bifurcated US economy where the services sector accounts for pretty much all of what’s still a robust growth impulse. That said, the leisure and hospitality category managed to add just 15,000 positions on ADP’s data, a lackluster showing.

Other than that, hiring in November was evenly distributed by sector, but weighted heavily towards larger firms. Companies with 500 or more employees accounted for 120,000 of the overall gain.

On the pay front, wage growth for so-called “job changers” picked up fairly sharply, rising to 7.2% from 6.7% in October.

That was the largest increase since March, and I’d be remiss not to note that it “coincided” (with the scare quotes to denote that the two reports aren’t technically for the same month) with the first increase in the JOLTS quit rate since May of 2023.

Pay growth for those who remained in their current roles also ticked higher, to 4.8%. The gap between the “stayer” series and the “changer” series widened to 2.4ppt.

Ultimately, this was an uneventful release which suggested employers are still hiring at the margins and workers retain some leverage in comp discussions.