Private sector hiring remained strong in July as employers added 178,000 jobs, ADP reported Wednesday.

Economists polled by Econoday had forecast a July gain of 173,000 jobs compared with an original reported increase of 158,000 in June. On Wednesday, ADP revised June’s gain to 191,000.

“It is a machine. Average monthly job growth this year is just south of 200,000. That’s exactly the job growth we’ve been getting coming up on eight years. It is an incredible run,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, which helps prepare the report, in an interview on CNBC.

Economists generally use ADP’s data to get a feeling for the Labor Department’s employment report, which will be released Friday and covers government jobs in addition to the private sector. But lately the ADP hasn’t been giving a clear signal. The ADP estimates have come in below the official figures in two of the past three months, noted Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP before the July report.

Economists polled by MarketWatch expect Labor’s report will show that nonfarm payroll slowed a bit to a gain of 180,000 jobs in July from 222,000 in June. Economists at Contingent Macro Advisers said the July ADP report fit nicely with these expectations.

Read:Ignoring Washington chaos, companies likely kept up strong hiring in July.

Details of ADP’s report showed that small private-sector businesses added 50,000 jobs in July, medium-size businesses added 83,000 and large businesses added 45,000.

Most of those gains were in the service sector—174,000 jobs added there, compared with only 4,000 for goods producers.