ADP says private payrolls rose 18,500 a week in the four weeks to October 3

The reading is one of the few hiring gauges on offer while the government shutdown keeps official jobs data on hold.

US private employers added an average of 18,500 jobs a week in the four weeks ended October 3, Automatic Data Processing reported.

That marks a slowdown from the prior four-week periods. ADP's release for the four weeks ended September 26 showed a weekly average of 24,750 jobs, itself down from 25,250 in the period before that, according to a summary of the release published by Stocktitan. The four weeks ended September 19 had shown 23,750 jobs a week, and the four weeks ended September 5 had shown 16,750, per ADP releases carried by PRNewswire and summarized by Stocktitan.

ADP's separate monthly National Employment Report, which measures a full calendar month rather than a rolling four weeks, showed private businesses added 90,000 jobs in September, up from 36,000 in August, according to data from Trading Economics drawn from ADP.

The weekly series, called the NER Pulse, is produced by ADP Research with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and is published every Tuesday at 8:15 a.m. Eastern, with a two-week lag built into its estimates, according to ADP's media center. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics unable to publish payrolls data during the shutdown, that pulse has become one of the few hiring gauges traders can lean on, and this reading sits at the high end of the gains the series has logged since it began. It points to steadier private hiring than the weak prints seen earlier in the fall, though ADP itself has flagged the series' limited track record as a standalone market mover, and how much weight it deserves will only be clear once official statistics resume.