Private payroll growth tailed off sharply in September, according to an ADP report Wednesday that provides a counterweight to other signs that the labor market is still running strong.

The payroll processing firm said job growth totaled just 89,000 for the month, down from an upwardly revised 180,000 in August and below the 160,000 estimate from economists polled by Dow Jones.

Perhaps more importantly, the report provides some sign that a historically tight labor market could be loosening and giving the Federal Reserve some incentive to stop raising interest rates. ADP also said annual wage growth slowed to 5.9%, the 12th consecutive monthly decline.

(via Off the Press)

[Be careful with ADP reports as predictive indicators, at least in terms of official BLS results. Of course, BLS data has its own issues these days. That is a wide miss, though, and the lagging wage growth indicates that the labor market may not have been as tight as the BLS numbers indicated. It also demonstrates that workers are still losing ground in Bidenomics and its high-inflation environment. — Ed]