ADP
Economists had estimated that payrolls grew by 190,000, lower than the 193,000 reported last month (revised from 205,000), according to Bloomberg.
In the release, ADP vice president and head Ahu Yildirmaz wrote, "Large businesses showed surprisingly strong job gains in February, despite the continuation of economic trends that negatively impact big companies like turmoil in international markets and a strengthening dollar."
The larger services sector contributed to most of the job gains for big companies, while manufacturing employment fell by 9,000.
This release comes ahead of the nonfarm payrolls report form the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, which is forecast to show that the US economy added 195,000 jobs last month.
In a client preview, Deutsche Bank's Joe LaVorgna and team wrote:
The ADP private employment survey is released today and could potentially cause analysts to alter their expectations of Friday's nonfarm payroll figure. In terms of the latter, we are projecting a 195k headline gain and a 185k increase in private-sector payrolls. While the ADP survey is the best predictor of the upcoming employment data, jobless claims tend to be more forward looking. As long as claims remain comfortably below 300k, the monthly change in payrolls is likely to be reasonably robust, around 200k.