After April and June's disappointment, ADP reports the US economy added 178k jobs in July (less than the 190k expectation and below June's upwardly revised 191k). This is somewhat in line with the 180k expectation for NFP on Friday.

Two months in a row, ADP has weakened as ISM surveys suggested employment is rolling over.

Once again Service-providing jobs dominated (+174k vs +4k for goods) with manufacturing losing 4,000 jobs in July.

“Job gains continued to be strong in the month of July,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute.

“However, as the labor market tightens employers may find it more difficult to recruit qualified workers.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said,

“The American job machine continues to operate in high gear. Job gains are broad-based across industries and company sizes, with only manufacturers reducing their payrolls. At this pace of job growth, unemployment will continue to quickly decline.”

Some more charts: total employment change - second worst month since October:

Change in Total Nonfarm Private Employment by Company Size

Full Breakdown:

And finally a little reminder...