Private-sector hiring picked up in January, as employers added 246,000 jobs, well above expectations, ADP reported Wednesday.

Economists polled by Econoday had expected a January gain of 168,000, compared with an originally reported increase of 153,000 in December.

This was the fastest pace of job growth since June.

Manufacturing added 15,000 jobs in January, the most since December 2014.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, which prepares the report using ADP’s data, said in an interview on CNBC that the January data was “juiced” by warm weather.

“It feels good. I think underlying job growth is still probably somewhere around 175,000,” he said.

Economists use ADP data to get a feeling for the Labor Department employment report, which will be released Friday and covers government jobs in addition to the private sector.

Economists polled by MarketWatch expect the government’s report to show that nonfarm employment picked up to 190,000 jobs last month, compared with a December gain of 156,000 jobs.

After the data was released, Morgan Stanley raised their estimate for January nonfarm payroll employment to 220,000 from 205,000.

U.S. stock-market futures, already tilting higher, extended modest gains following the private sector report, with futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average US:YMH7 trading up 0.4% at 19,862, S&P 500 futures US:ESH7 gaining 0.3% at 2,281, and Nasdaq-100 futures US:NQH7 rising 0.7% at 5,165.

Details of ADP’s report showed that small private-sector businesses added 62,000 jobs in January, medium-sized businesses added 102,000 and large businesses added 83,000.

Most of those gains were in the service sector — 201,000 jobs added there, compared with 46,000 for goods producers.