US employers in the private sector added an estimated 89,000 jobs in September, a much lower total than expected and a potential indication of a sharp pullback in the labor market, payroll processor ADP reported Wednesday.

In September, the number of jobs added fell well short of economists’ estimates of 153,000, as did August’s upwardly revised total of 180,000. According to ADP, job growth has slowed to its lowest level since January 2021.

ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said Wednesday morning that the number of jobs is declining steeply this month. In addition, wages have been declining steadily in the past year.”

For people who stayed at their jobs, annual pay increases were 5.9%, the slowest increase since October 2021; and for people who changed jobs, annual pay increases were 9.5%.

An estimated 92,000 jobs were added in the leisure and hospitality sector during the month. As reported by ADP, professional and business services, trade, transportation, and utilities, and manufacturing saw the largest declines.

The decline was driven by large businesses with 500 or more employees, which lost 83,000 jobs.

Based on anonymized and aggregated payroll data from ADP’s clients, the ADP report measures employment trends independently.

It’s sometimes viewed as a proxy for overall hiring activity, which has been slowly easing, even if ADP’s figures don’t always line up with the official federal jobs report due on Friday.

Nevertheless, monthly data can be inconsistent.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report for August, the number of available jobs unexpectedly spiked, rattling markets. The underlying trend, however, remains one of cooling, according to economists.