Washington, Jan 6 (IANS): Private companies in the US added 807,000 jobs in December 2021, indicating continued recovery in the labour market, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported.

"December's job market strengthened as the fallout from the Delta variant faded and Omicron's impact had yet to be seen," Xinhua news agency quoted Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, as saying.

"Job gains were broad-based, as goods producers added the strongest reading of the year, while service providers dominated growth," Richardson added.

Service sector saw a job gain of 669,000 in December, with 246,000 jobs added in leisure and hospitality, according to the report produced by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Moody's Analytics.

Goods-producing sector, meanwhile, added 138,000 jobs in the month, with 74,000 jobs added in manufacturing, the report showed.

Large firms hired 389,000 workers, medium-sized businesses hired about 214,000, while small companies added some 204,000 employees, the report revealed, indicating an unbalanced recovery across different company sizes.

While job gains eclipsed 6 million in 2021, private sector payrolls are still nearly 4 million jobs short of pre-Covid levels, according to Richardson.