WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. added 158,000 private-sector jobs in October, payrolls processor ADP said on Thursday in the first release since adopting a new way to measure employment.

The expansion would suggest upside to consensus expectations the Labor Department will report on Friday that 120,000 private and government jobs were created last month. However, the new methodology will likely mean that traders adopt a cautious assessment of the report.

ADP said 144,000 service-providing and 14,000 goods-producing jobs were created, numbers that fit a broader theme that manufacturing positions, while growing, are hard to come by.

A 23,000 gain in construction positions offset an 8,000 drop in manufacturing, ADP said.

On the services side, professional/business services had the largest gain with 35,000 jobs added over the month. Trade/transportation/utilities added 24,000 jobs and financial activities added 9,000 jobs in October, ADP said.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Businesses are adding consistently to their payrolls. October’s job gains were in line with the average monthly gains of the past two years, with sturdy albeit less than stellar growth across most industries and company sizes. Businesses have turned more cautious in recent months, but that has yet to impact their hiring and firing decisions.”

As part of its overhaul, ADP switched partners to Moody’s from Macroeconomic Advisers, a smaller St. Louis-based firm that helped create the original ADP report in 2006.

Each month, ADP and Moody’s will draw data from 406,000 companies that employ 23 million workers., up from 344,000 companies and 21 million employees under the old method. ADP is forecasting the increased survey size and changed methodology will reduce the gap between their data and that produced by the Labor Department.

Elsewhere, the Labor Department reported that first-time jobless claims fell 9,000 to 363,000, while the outplacement firm Challenger reported an increase in layoff announcements in October. Read more on jobs data.