The employment report prepared by Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) and Moody's Analytics showed on Wednesday the U.S. private employers added 742,000 jobs in April. This marked the largest advance in private-sector employment since September 2020.

Economists had expected an increase of 800,000.

The March number saw an upward revision to 565,000 from the originally reported 517,000.

“The labor market continues an upward trend of acceleration and growth, posting the strongest reading since September 2020,” noted Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist. “Service providers have the most to gain as the economy reopens, recovers and resumes normal actvities and are leading job growth in April. While payrolls are still more than 8 million jobs short of pre-COVID-19 levels, job gains have totaled 1.3 million in the last two months after adding only about 1 million jobs over the course of the previous five months.”