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Private sector hiring picked up in September, indicating the labor market is holding its ground despite some signs of weakness, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.

Companies added 143,000 jobs for the month, an acceleration from the upwardly revised 103,000 in August and better than the 128,000 consensus forecast from economists polled by Dow Jones.

While hiring increased, the rate of pay growth took another step down. The 12-month gain for those staying in their jobs nudged lower to 4.7%, while tumbling to 6.6% for job switchers, down 0.7 percentage point from August.

Job gains were fairly widespread, with leisure and hospitality leading at 34,000, followed by construction (26,000), education and health services (24,000), professional and business services (20,000), and other services (17,000).

Information services was the lone category posting a loss, down 10,000.

Service providers accounted for 101,000 of the total, with goods producers adding the rest.

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