ADP says 291,000 private-sector jobs created in January, largest gain in 4 years

What happened: Small businesses added 94,000 jobs in January, ADP said. Medium-sized businesses added 128,000 and large companies added 69,000.

There were broad gains across sectors. According to data on 10 major industries tracked by ADP, leisure and hospitality had the biggest gain in January. Education also had a strong gain.

Only mining had a small decline.

Big picture: Economists note there has been a big gap recently between ADP and government data, so the strong ADP reading might not lead to many upward estimates for job growth. According to a MarketWatch survey, economists expect 165,000 job gains in January and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 3.5%, a 50-year low.

Most economists expects a slower pace of job growth as the year progresses.