ADP

As the creation of new jobs slows and layoffs continue, small businesses keep hiring. ADP is betting those companies will continue to buck the trend. It's setting up new services to capitalize on that growth.

Private employers added a much-better-than-expected 217,000 jobs in February, ADP has reported. That's the fifth straight month of job gains in the private sector -- another sign that the U.S. labor market continues to slowly heal.

Private employers added 187,000 jobs in January, ADP announced Wednesday, 47,000 more then economists had predicted. That marks the fourth straight month of significant job gains -- a trend that suggests the U.S. labor market is recovering.

The all-important January employment reports come out this week. Also worth watching for are a host of earnings releases, led by economic bellwhether UPS. The package deliverer is expected to post strong results.

This week was all about jobs reports, and after December's employment numbers fell short of expectations, stocks ended the first week of trading in 2011 on a down note. Kenny Polcari, managing director at ICAP Corporates explains from the New York Stock Exchange.

ADP excludes government jobs. It's also notoriously volatile and has a history of big misses in forecasting the official Labor Department payroll report. But perhaps most important is that it just doesn't jibe with other recent data points -- or the recovery's pace.

ADP's latest report showed a total that was nearly triple what economists were expecting. It's only one month's data, and it's too soon to call it a hiring boom. However, the report offers more hope and some evidence that the nation's long job drought is ending.

The Dow jumped skyward on Wednesday as stocks rallied around the globe on a stream of strong economic news, both abroad and in the U.S. A less anxious outlook for European sovereign debt also helped.

ADP reported the biggest private sector job gain in three years, and it revised October's total to 82,000 -- nearly double the initial estimate. A retrenchment is always possible, but it now appears that the long period of job losses is ending.

The long period of large monthly losses appears to be ending, as the private sector added 43,000 jobs in October, according to ADP's latest report. And September's job loss was greatly revised, from an initial estimate of 39,000 down to just 2,000.