Washington, Apr 1 (IANS): Private companies in the US added 517,000 jobs in March, indicating continued laboUr market recovery, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) said in a report.

The employment growth was mainly in the service-providing sectors, which added 437,000 jobs in the month, according to Wednesday's report, which was produced by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Moody's Analytics.

"Job growth in the service sector significantly outpaced its recent monthly average, led with notable increase by the leisure and hospitality industry," Xinhua news agency quoted Nela Richardson, chief economist of ADP, as saying.

"We are continuing to keep a close watch on the hardest hit sectors but the groundwork is being laid for a further boost in the monthly pace of hiring in the months ahead," Richardson said.

Large firms and medium-sized businesses hired 155,000 and 188,000 workers respectively, while small companies added 174,000 employees, the ADP report showed, indicating a balanced recovery across different company sizes.

Private companies slashed roughly 20 million jobs in March and April last year amid Covid-19 shutdowns.

Amid reopening efforts, the private sector saw a revised job gain of over 3 million in May, followed by a revised growth of over 4 million in June.

In recent months, however, job growth has been slowing down.

In December, the trend was even reversed, with private companies shedding a revised 75,000 jobs amid Covid-19 spikes.

The ADP report came two days before the crucial monthly employment report released by the BLS, which will include employment data from both the private sector and the government.