For the fifth straight month, private companies added more than 200,000 jobs, according to the ADP National Employment Report for the month of August.
That's good news because any number above 200,000 will usually bring down the unemployment rate.
In a statement, Carlos Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of the payroll processor, said that August, with 204,000 jobs added, marks a continuing "encouraging trend for the U.S. labor market."
Here's a graph showing the monthly surveys going back a year:
The Associated Press adds:
"The figures suggest that the government's jobs report, to be released Friday, will also show a solid increase. But the ADP numbers cover only private businesses and sometimes diverge from the government's more comprehensive report.
"Economists surveyed by FactSet forecast that the government's report will show that 220,000 jobs were added in August, while the unemployment rate slipped to 6.1 percent."
The ADP report, which is produced in collaboration with Moody's Analytics, comes a day ahead of data on the rates of unemployment and job growth in August. The BLS report is expected at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday.
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