Washington, Aug 5 (IANS): Private companies in the US added 330,000 jobs in July, registering a slower growth than previous months, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported.

Noting that the labour market recovery continues to exhibit "uneven progress", Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said on Wednesday that the July payroll data reports "a marked slowdown" from the second quarter pace in jobs growth, reports Xinhua news agency.

Private companies previously added a downwardly revised 882,000 jobs in May, posting the biggest gain in 11 months, according to the report, which was produced by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Moody's Analytics.

In June, job gains in the private sector moderated to a downwardly revised 680,000.

Richardson also noted that the leisure and hospitality sector is the fastest growing industry for the fifth straight month, "though gains have softened" in July.

The service-providing sectors added 318,000 jobs in the month, with leisure and hospitality sectors making up 139,000 of the job gains, according to the report.

Large firms and medium-sized businesses hired 106,000 and 132,000 workers, respectively, and small companies added 91,000 employees, the ADP report showed, indicating a slowdown in the recovery across different company sizes.

"Bottlenecks in hiring continue to hold back stronger gains, particularly in light of new Covid-19 concerns tied to viral variants," Richardson said, adding that these barriers should ebb in coming months, leading to stronger monthly gains ahead.

The ADP report came two days before the crucial monthly employment report released by the Department of Labour's Bureau of Labour Statistics, which will include employment data from both the private sector and the government.