With a multidecade low unemployment rate of just 3.5%, the ongoing debate is about how strongly the U.S. jobs market can keep chugging along. If Wednesday’s report from ADP is echoed in this Friday’s employment report from the U.S. Department of Labor, the job market is not rolling over yet. ADP reported that private sector payrolls added another 291,000 in January.

Econoday was calling for a gain of only 154,000 payrolls in January, and Dow Jones expected a gain of only 150,000. December’s prior report was revised down to 199,000 from 202,000.

Gains were seen in all tiers of businesses for the 291,000 added payrolls. Small businesses added 94,000 and medium sizes businesses (50 to 499 employees) added 128,000 to their payrolls. Large businesses with 500 employees or more added 69,000 payrolls in January.

The gains were broad-based in sectors as well. Of the 54,000 in the goods-producing category, 47,000 came from construction and 10,000 additional positions came from manufacturing. Natural resources and mining saw a drop of just 2,000. The services sector added 237,000 payrolls, led by professional and business services (49,000), education and health services (70,000) and leisure and hospitality (96,000).

Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said:

The labor market experienced expanded payrolls in January. Goods producers added jobs, particularly in construction and manufacturing, while service providers experienced a large gain, led by leisure and hospitality. Job creation was strong among midsized companies, though small companies enjoyed the strongest performance in the last 18 months.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, has been trying to tip his hat to a slowing jobs market for some time now. In early January, he noted that unemployment will begin to rise if job growth slows much further. In early December, Zandi noted that the job market is losing its shine and warned that unemployment will increase if job growth slows any further. And in early November, Zandi’s warnings were more or less the same after saying that job growth has throttled way back over the past year. As for this very strong payrolls report for January of 2020, Zandi said:

Mild winter weather provided a significant boost to the January employment gain. The leisure and hospitality and construction industries in particular experienced an outsized increase in jobs. Abstracting from the vagaries of the data underlying job growth is close to 125,000 per month, which is consistent with low and stable unemployment.

The job market has been showing some cracks in the seemingly endless strength, but this January report almost feels like an outlier. After all, this was the strongest single month of ADP’s payroll count since May of 2015.

Using the ADP payrolls report each month is not always an accurate way to benchmark the report from the Labor Department. Still, it is generally used for mirroring the direction of estimates. Econoday currently has a consensus of just 158,000 for nonfarm payrolls and 150,000 for private sector payrolls for January. Those estimates now likely will be nudged higher, by at least some margin, ahead of Friday’s Employment Situation report.

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