Washington, Jan 5 (IANS): Private companies in the US added 164,000 jobs in December 2023 amid slowing job growth, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) said.

Job gains rose for the fourth straight month, led by a healthy bump in leisure and hospitality hiring, Xinhua news agency reported citing the ADP as saying.

"Construction held strong in the face of high interest rates, but manufacturing continued to struggle, notching another month of losses," it added.

In the service-providing sector, 155,000 jobs were added, with a decline of 2,000 jobs in information, and growth of 59,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality, according to the company.

Pay for job-stayers rose 5.4 percent in December, slowing from 5.6 per cent a month earlier and continuing a deceleration that began in September 2022, said ADP.

"While wages didn't drive the recent bout of inflation, now that pay growth has retreated, any risk of a wage-price spiral has all but disappeared," said Nela Richardson, chief economist at the ADP.

"We're returning to a labor market that's very much aligned with pre-pandemic hiring," said Richardson.

Job growth in the private sector totaled a downwardly revised 101,000 in November 2023, the report showed.