“Unemployment is expected to remain above 8 percent for the next four years.” That gloomy assessment of the U.S. economy from FedEx Chief Economist Gene Huang is echoed in any number of reports and economic predictions.

“Most predictions,” says an economic analysis by the Society for Human Resource Management, “are less optimistic now than they were when 2011 began.”

What especially worries economists is whether the slow job growth is due to employer cautiousness — in which case growth will accelerate when economic confidence returns — or whether it is structural, meaning some jobs have been permanently eliminated, much the way automation obsoleted elevator operators.

“It is a fair bet that aggregate demand remains the main problem while pockets of skills mismatches persist, despite the high number of job seekers,” says the SHRM analysis.

The latest economist to weigh in is Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research for The Conference Board. Last week, he dissected recoveries of the past to examine the rate of job growth across multiple industries. What he found is that “the current employment recovery is the second slowest on record.”

His analysis led him to conclude that job growth this year is going to be a lot like last year.

Like Huang, the St. Louis Federal Reserve doesn’t see unemployment moving much below 7 percent before 2014 and even then, the Fed says it might even be up around 8 percent. That’s despite the Fed’s guess that real GDP is likely to be over 3 percent, possibly even up to around 4 percent.

Levanon’s analysis, though, offered some support for the SHRM view that it is weak demand that’s limiting job growth. One look at the chart and two things jump out. The first is how small the percentages are now compared to recoveries of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The other is how robust the growth in temporary workers is.

The latter is a good sign. It suggests, at least, that the current pace of job growth is likely to continue. While a nearly 32 percent growth in temporary staffing since June 2009 would historically signal a spurt in full-time job growth, that may not be the case in this recovery. Instead, it may evidence that some structural changes are occurring in how employers manage their workforce.

This is not the same as automation eliminating jobs, but is a response to business cycles — as when retailers add staff in the fall for the holiday season — or project-based needs, or the natural ebb and flow. In other words, more employers may be including the use of temps as a strategic part of their workforce, and not merely as a precursor to fulltime hiring.

This so-called “secular growth” theory is certainly debatable. A Morgan Stanley research paper last spring challenged the notion that temporary and contract workers are becoming a strategic part of corporate employment in the U.S. and worldwide.

However, in a provocative and data-laden analysis of the staffing industry, BMO Capital Markets says “it may be different this time.” While the firm doubted the secular growth notion, now it’s not so sure. The research report issued earlier this month says:

However, by this point in the cycle, we should have seen a significant switch from “temp” to “perm,” but we have not; temp jobs represented nearly 15% of totals jobs added in the current recovery – by far the highest of the first 21 months in the past six post-recession periods – and given the current sluggish rebound, total employment may not return to its pre-recession peak for the first time ever.

There’s evidence now, says BMO, that the proponents of secular growth may be right “and the industry is seeing some secular growth as corporations use temporary staffing more strategically as part of their overall human resource policies.”

You don’t even have to read the text to know that SHRM’s LINE report  has bad news this month. The plus and minus signs say recruiting is getting more difficult while the number of new reqs is going down.

The gloomy January outlook says, “For the third consecutive month, hiring activity will decrease and job cuts will rise in the manufacturing and service sectors compared with a year earlier.”

Now click over to The Conference Board and you find that every arrow on its list of U.S. indicators is up. Yesterday, The Conference Board said its Employment Trend Index rose in December for the third consecutive month. This morning, the non-profit business organization released its CEO Confidence measure for the last quarter of 2011. It was up seven points, coming in at 49, just one point below where it turns more positive than negative.

So who’s right and who’s wrong?

Probably no one or everyone. Or at least everyone is partially right. This U.S. recovery, such as it is, is tentative, slow, and unlike those that followed most of the country’s previous recessions.

A few months ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned, “While we still expect that economic activity and labor market conditions will improve gradually over time, the pace of progress is likely to be frustratingly slow.”

“Moreover,” he added, “There are significant downside risks to the economic outlook.”

That economic reports will seesaw on a monthly basis is therefore not surprising. It happened at the beginning of last year when unemployment went from 9.8 percent in November 2010 to 9.4, then 9.1 and to 8.9 percent in March 2011. January’s job growth was 68,000, jumping to 235,000 in February, before dropping like a rock in May, along with the stock market.

As those job numbers grew and unemployment declined, consumer confidence rose, as did several other economic indicators, including The Conference Board’s Employment Trend Index. By May, it all stalled out and some indicators — Consumer Confidence among them — went into decline.

Last month was a bullish month, with the U.S. economy adding 200,000 jobs. It echoed a similarly bullish 152,000 jobs added in December 2010. But that was followed a month later by 68,000 in January. Now the question is, will 2012 repeat  2011. SHRM’s Leading Indicators of National Employment survey is saying January will.

Every month the Society for Human Resource Management surveys HR executives about their hiring plans for the month ahead, as well as their difficulty in recruiting, vacancies, and new hire compensation. The results, broken out for manufacturing and the service sector, are released at the start of the new month and offer an preview of what may happen.

“The LINE results for January 2012 reflect an ongoing trend of subpar growth in job creation,” says SHRM. The key findings from the report predict:

• Low rate of job creation expected for January.
  Hiring activity will fall slightly in manufacturing and sharply in services in January compared with a year ago.
• Recruiting difficulty edges up in both sectors.
  More HR professionals in both sectors reported increased difficulty with recruiting key candidates in December compared with a year ago.
• Some new hires see increases in compensation. In December, the rate of increase for wages and benefits
  rose on an annual basis in manufacturing and fell in services.

If you, like countless other Americans, wonder why the recovery isn’t recovering more quickly, Prof. Stephen P. A. Brown at the University of Nevada Las Vegas offers an explanation. He’s director of the school’s Center for Business and Economic Research, and he says this recovery is different from those that preceeded it because the recession was different.

In “Why Such a Slow Recovery of the U.S. Economy?” Brown says, “Unlike the previous 10 post‐World War II recessions that the United States endured, the 2007‐09 downturn was precipitated by a financial crisis … financial crises tend to lead to recessions that are more severe and recoveries that are substantially slower. In some cases, the crisis may affect economic growth for as much as a decade after the recession’s official end.”

His prediction for the months head?

… employment will grow only fast enough to maintain U.S. unemployment rates in the current range around 9 percent for a sustained period of time. A complete recovery in which economic activity rises to its potential and the unemployment rate is reduced will take a much longer period of time and considerable readjustment in the economy.

Surprising economists and putting an upbeat end to 2011, the U.S. unemployment rate declined to 8.5 percent in December while the economy added 200,000 new non-farm jobs.

It was the fourth consecutive month of declines in the unemployment rate, and the sixth month of six-figure job growth. December’s unemployment rate is the lowest since early 2009.

The official numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor beat all but the most aggressive estimates. Economists were expecting the unemployment rate to rise, and predicted new job numbers in the 150,000 range.

Yesterday, ADP’s monthly employment numbers suggested a January surprise when the company said 325,000 private sector jobs were added in December. Analysts cautioned that the ADP report was not entirely reliable, though they said it pointed in the right direction. This morning’s government report said 212,000 new private sector jobs were added last month.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles and releases the government figures, revised unemployment rates back to January, none by more than .1. November’s initial 8.6 percent was raised to 8.7 percent.

As in the case of the ADP data, seasonal adjustments might be making the jobs numbers somewhat rosier than is actually the case. The New York Times explained that because seasonality takes into account recent year patterns, the drop-off in hiring when the recession began in December 2007 might skew the numbers.

Nonetheless, there is plenty of evidence the economy is continuing to improve. Today’s report said the average workweek for all private, non-farm workers increased to 34.4 hours, while the manufacturing week lengthened to 40.5 hours.

Average hourly earnings rose by 4 cents to $23.24, making the average pay increase for the year 2.1 percent.

“You got the trifecta — more people working, wages up, and the average work week up,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. to Bloomberg News. “You can’t really argue that that isn’t a sign of significant improvement in the job market.”

Some of the strongest signs are the 23,000 new manufacturing jobs in December, the first significant improvement in four months for that sector. Mining, largely in the petroleum industry, was up by 7,000.  Transportation and warehousing rose by 50,000 thanks in part to strong seasonal hiring during the month.

For the year, the economy added 1.64 million workers; 1.9 million new private sector jobs were created, but government layoffs offset some 280,000. Nevertheless, it was the most jobs created since 2006, and follows the 940,000 increase in 2010.

Still, the economy overall lost 8.75 million jobs in the recession. And even with the declines in the unemployment rate, some 13.1 million workers are out of a job. Another 8.1 million were working part time in December because they couldn’t find full-time jobs. About 2.5 million more are counted as “marginally attached,” a number unchanged in a year. They aren’t included in the official unemployment count because they didn’t look for work during the government’s survey period.

Together, these 23.7 million unemployed and underemployed workers, show there is still a long way to go to get back to pre-recession levels.

Payroll processor ADP says the U.S. added 325,000 private sector jobs in December, a new jobs number that beat even the most optimistic of estimates.

The job count in ADP’s National Employment Report released this morning was almost twice the estimate of some surveys, and was the highest reported by ADP in a year. A Bloomberg survey of economists put the average estimate at 178,000 jobs; other surveys were in the same range.

Combined with today’s report that initial claims for unemployment dropped by 15,000 last week, the news helped ease a stock market decline prompted by renewed concerns about European debt problems. The reports also prompted some economists to wonder if tomorrow’s official employment report from the U.S. Labor Department will hold a similar surprise.

“The ADP data confirms that the underlying U.S. economy is outperforming the other G10 countries. This should hike up expectations for the non-farm payrolls report on Friday,” said Boris Schlossberg, director of FX Research, GFT.

However, most economists cautioned against reading too much into the ADP report. The Wall Street Journal, in a blog entry headlined “Strong ADP Jobs Gain Needs Grain of Salt,” said the ADP numbers are skewed by end-of-year payroll purges that may not be completely factored in.

Reuters said Joel Prakken, of Macroeconomic Advisers, which helps produce the survey, told reporters that job readings tend to be inflated at year-end as employers keep workers on payrolls for accounting reasons, and the reading could be revised lower.

That happened in December 2010. ADP and Macroeconomic Advisers initially reported the economy created 297,000 jobs. That estimate was subsequently lowered by 51,000. When the official government report was released a few days after ADP’s, it showed only 113,000 private sector jobs were created.

Economists now estimate that when the official December report is out tomorrow morning, it will show the economy added about 150,000 total non-farm jobs. (The U.S. report counts both government and private sector jobs, while the ADP report includes only the latter.) However, the unemployment rate is anticipated to have edged up to 8.7 percent from November’s 8.6 percent, due to the increased number of people looking for work during December.

Even so, economists generally are hopeful about the economy.

“We certainly are seeing resilience in the job market,” Sean Incremona, a senior economist at 4cast Inc. in New York, told Bloomberg. “We’ve seen some improvement versus earlier in 2011 and it’s encouraging.”

The ADP report said most of the job growth came in the service sector, which added 273,000 positions in December. All but 35,000 positions were created by companies with fewer than 500 employees.

Manufacturing added 22,000 positions. The larger, goods-producing sector added 52,000 positions.

Here, on this first business day of 2012, the new year is still full of promise, and optimism hangs in the air.

Consumer confidence is at the highest level in months. The U.S. economy has been adding jobs now for more than a year. When the December report is released Friday, the expectation is that it, too, will show job growth. ADP’s monthly job numbers will be out Thursday morning, offering a preview of what the official U.S. Labor Department employment data may show.

Today, the stock market is up decisively up on reports of strong growth in manufacturing, and increased construction spending. There’s even a cautious willingness among employers to add even more staff this year.

CareerBuilder says that one in four employers plans to add permanent staff this year, about the same number the job board reported for 2011. The 11 percent unsure what they’ll be doing can be read to mean that if the economy improves — as the rising consumer confidence measures suggest the country expects — then even more hiring could be coming.

Manpower’s quarterly employment survey was even a bit more positive. It found that 14 percent of employers intend to add jobs in the first three months of the year, its strongest hiring outlook since 2008.

Consumers, too, are more hopeful. The venerable Consumer Confidence Index has climbed almost 25 points since October. At 64.5, the Index is at its highest point in eight months. The holiday spirit may account for some of that, but there’s also evidence that employment prospects are brightening. The Conference Board’s employment trends index was up 6.4 percent in November compared to the year before. (December’s result will be released next week.)

Last week, Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that 30 percent of the callers to its annual free, phone-in job help line were optimistic they would land a job within three months. In 2010, only 18 percent thought that was the case.

Since June the number of new jobs created each month has been above 100,000. It’s still a slow growth rate, but it’s a significant improvement over 2010 when six out of the 12 months showed job cuts.

“We continue to hear people say that the U.S. recovery is fragile, and that’s the wrong word,” says Michael Gapen, an economist with Barclays Capital. “It’s durable. It’s just not robust. It’s a moderate expansion.”

That’s one reason companies have been hesitant to add permanent staff. It’s also likely that employers recall that after a strong start to 2011, the recovery stalled as the financial markets began recognizing the seriousness of the European debt crises. In the first four months of 2011, some 714,000 jobs were created. Less than half that were created in the next four months.

World economic conditions are still far from stable. Iran is threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which is starting to send oil futures up. Bank lending hasn’t loosened much and a Presidential election creates more uncertainty about future U.S. economic policy.

With that baggage causing employers to be especially cautious, Monster says that temp hiring is likely to be strong well into 2012. Indeed, in its December report, the American Staffing Association reported that the staffing index has been climbing, slowly, but steadily, since February 2011. The index is now pretty much where it was at the end of last year.

No wonder, then, that job seekers are tempering their expectations about finding permanent work. That Challenger, Gray & Christmas survey also found that many more job seekers this year expect their job search to last a year. In 2010, 4 percent thought that. This year, 10 percent do.

“There was a lot more uncertainty a year ago. Almost half of last year’s callers had no idea how long the job search would take. This year, callers were either certain of the job market’s improvement or certain of its continued weakness,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, referring to the increase in both optimistic and pessimistic callers.

Among the unemployed callers, 37 percent have been out of work for one to six months. Another 14 percent have been jobless for 7 to 12 months. As an indication of how tight the job market remains, the remaining 50 percent of callers had been jobless for a year or more, with 60 percent of these long-time job seekers out of work for two years or longer.

CareerBuilder’s CEO Matt Ferguson predicts a somewhat brighter employment picture for 2012 than the numbers — or the job seeker survey might — imply.

“Historically, our surveys have shown that employers are more conservative in their predictions than actual hiring,” says Ferguson. “Barring any major economic upsets, we expect 2012 to bring a better hiring picture than 2011, especially in the second half of the year.”

After spiking last spring, unemployment claims have been declining, reaching their lowest point last week since April 2008.

The report this morning from the U.S. Department of Labor says 364,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week, a decrease of 4,000 from the week before and 59,000 fewer than the same week last year. It’s the third consecutive weekly drop. (Numbers are seasonally adjusted.)

A Reuters poll of economists in advance of this morning’s release predicted the number of new claims would rise to 375,000. The lower-than-expected number helped get stocks off to a strong start this morning despite a Commerce Department report that the third quarter GDP grew at a revised 1.8 percent rate. Previously, the rate had been estimated at 2 percent. Economists were expecting the 2 percent growth rate to stand.

However, there were other positive economic reports. The Thomson Reuters University of Michigan consumer sentiment rose to 69.9 points in December from November’s 64.1, besting expectations it would only reach 68. The index is derived from monthly surveys of consumers nationwide.

The report noted that, “Good times economically were expected in 2012 by 29 percent (of consumers) in December, up from 19 percent in November and the recent low of 14 percent in August. While more consumers heard news of employment gains in December, they didn’t expect that those gains would have much impact on the national unemployment rate in the months ahead.”

However, the survey measures were below last year’s levels and consumers reported being worried about their personal finances. That prompted surveys chief economist Richard Curtin to warn, “If the payroll tax holiday is not extended, it would be a significant drag on economic growth, and would increase the likelihood that weakness in consumer spending would again put the economy at risk of a renewed downturn.”

With Congress stalemated over extending the payroll tax cut, business associations are warning that hiring plans are beginning to be put on hold. The International Franchise Association said this week that failing to extend the cut will “jeopardize the creation of 168,000 new jobs” next year.

If there’s no action by the end of the year, workers will see fewer dollars in their first paychecks of 2012, at just the time bills for their holiday shopping begin to roll in. For workers earning $50,000 annually, it would mean about $19 a week less take home pay.

Much of the attention has been focused on the impact of ending the 2 percent savings on Social Security taxes that has been in effect for a year; without a break in the impasse, some 2.6 million Americans could lose their unemployment benefits. CNN/Money says that by mid-January, nearly 700,000 would lose benefits, which average $300 weekly. By March 3, the number rises to 2.6 million, according to White House estimates.

With a stock price so low Monster is about to fall out of the S&P 500, there’s some very public speculation that the global employment advertising company could be bought by a private equity fund.

Rumors have periodically made the rounds of a potential or even pending sale — 20 of them since 2006, according to Bloomberg. All have proven false. But now, says the financial news service, financial analysts and some of Monster’s largest shareholders say the time and price may be right for a takeover.

“The valuation is absurdly cheap,” Eric Green, a Philadelphia-based fund manager at Penn Capital, told Bloomberg. With 3.2 million shares of Monster stock, Penn Capital is one of the company’s largest shareholders.

“The stock has been a clear disappointment,” Green is quoted as saying. He suggested a takeover price of $15 a share. That’s a 92 percent premium over Thursday’s closing price of $7.83. “I would love to see someone buy it,” he said.

Monster’s stock price has declined steadily since hitting a 10-year high of $59.28 in May, 2006. In the last 12 months, the stock has been as high as $25.90, reaching there in January, when the economy seemed ready for a hiring surge. Since August, it has been under $10 a share.

The market value of the company is now about $1 billion, $5 billion less than it was worth in 2006. Its 66 percent decline since the start of this year is the largest of any company included in the S&P 500. As a result, Monster is being moved by Standard & Poors to its MidCap 400 after the market closes today.

Part of the reason for the lackluster stock performance is the weak hiring outlook and the global economic climate of the last few years. Another part is the rise of alternative recruiting channels, especially social media, and especially the launch of LinkedIn as a public company. It bears noting that as hot a launch as LinkedIn had, rising almost immediately upon the start of trading to a high of $122.70, it has been under $75 a share since November. Dice Holdings, the other pure play job board, is also off its 12-month high of $18.75, closing Thursday at $8.75. LinkedIn closed at $66.38. CareerBuilder is privately held by a group of newspaper companies with Gannett owning the majority.

“When the employment market recovers, we’re going to see Monster’s revenue recover,” Avondale analyst Jim Janesky told Bloomberg. “If Monster doesn’t earn the value it deserves in the stock market, then there are various other avenues of recognizing value, and one is certainly a merger or an M&A opportunity.”

Monster declined to comment to Bloomberg and didn’t respond to our email asking for comment.

Manpower says the U.S. hiring outlook for the first part of next year is the most positive since 2008. That’s not saying much, though.

The quarterly Manpower survey of hiring intentions released today shows 14 percent of employers expect to add to their workforce in the first three months of 2012. Nine percent expect a decline; 7 percent don’t know; and, 70 percent predict no change. With Manpower’s seasonal adjustment, the net result is nine percent overall increase in job growth intentions.

Intentions, of course, don’t necessarily translate into actual hiring. But next quarter’s employer plans at least show the first improvement in a year. Throughout this year, Manpower’s survey of hiring intent stayed at a consistent 8 percent. It’s also the ninth constitutive quarter of positive hiring intentions.

“Slow, but steady momentum has improved employer confidence, which is likely why more employers are planning to hire in the first quarter,” said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup president of the Americas.

However, there’s an unusually large number of employers who don’t know what they’ll be doing next quarter. The 7 percent uncertain employers i  the highest since 2005 and the jump between the current fourth quarter, where 3 percent of employers were unsure, to next quarter is the largest since 1977.

“This uptick is encouraging,” Prising, said, “but the historically high proportion of employers that are unsure of their hiring plans indicates continued uncertainty about the future and ongoing caution when it comes to staffing plans.”

Adding to the uncertainty is the continuing debate in the U.S. Congress about extending a payroll tax cut, which expires in less than three weeks, as well as the European bailout and the future of the Euro.

As if to underscore the uncertainty, a survey by Dice Holdings, owner of eFinancialCareers and the IT specialty job board Dice.com, found 47 percent of hiring managers and recruiters saying they expected to increase hiring in the first half of 2012 compared to their hiring in the second half of 2011.

While the Dice results are more optimistic than what Manpower found, both surveys found a majority of companies plan no additional hiring. Dice said 53 percent of the respondents expect no new hiring in the first half of next year; Manpower put the number at 70 percent for the first three months.

Manpower’s survey also found that the most robust hiring will be in the mining sector (which include oil and gas), which is projected to see a seasonally adjusted 16 percent hiring boost. Leisure and hospitality is just behind with a 14 percent net employment outlook. Only construction is expected to see a net jobs decrease. It’s employment outlook is -7 percent.

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest it has been since March 2009, as the U.S. economy added 120,000 jobs.

The job growth announced this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor was at the low end of the various estimates of what economists were expecting, though some predictions were upped following a robust report Wednesday from payroll and HR services firm ADP. The company said 206,000 private sector jobs were added.

The U.S. Labor Department report said private sector, non-farm payrolls increased by 140,000 jobs, but cuts in government jobs decreased the overall number.

The government also revised up the number of new jobs originally reported for September (158,000 to 210,000) and October (80,000 to 100,000).

Wall Street responded to the report by driving up stock prices, not with the same frenzy as it did earlier this week, but still with strength. At mid-morning in New York, the Dow was up almost 100 points.

While any reduction in the unemployment rate is good news, some of it is attributable to a decrease in the number of workers in the labor force. (The labor force is the count of the unemployed and those who have jobs, whether full or part-time.)

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which issues the monthly jobs numbers, said 315,000 Americans had dropped out of the labor force. What happened and why isn’t part of the report. However, the BLS said 2.6 million people (not seasonally adjusted) are considered “marginally attached,” meaning they wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months, but because they didn’t look for a job during the monthly survey period and weren’t employed, are not included in the labor force count.

A blog post by the Wall Street Journal does a good a job of explaining the nature of the unemployment numbers, which come from one kind of survey, and the jobs numbers, which come from a wholly different type of count.

Overall the ranks of the unemployed decreased by almost 600,000. That leaves 13.3 million people out of work. Another 8.5 million people are working part-time because they can’t find full-time jobs.

Whatever the reason, Americans are feeling more confident, at least according to surveys. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index jumped 15 points during the month.

Joanie Ruge, SVP & chief employment analyst with Randstad Holding U.S., noting that the company’s Employee Confidence Index is also rising, said, “Consumers are feeling more positive about their personal employment situation and more optimistic about the economic environment overall.”

The confidence, she observed, is fueling the surge in holiday spending this year, which has so far been running ahead of 2010. “Retail sales were up 7 percent over 2010, with buyers spending $11.4 billion at retail stores and malls this year, marking the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007,” Ruge said, adding that retailers have added perhaps as many as half-a-million seasonal jobs.

“Taking all these factors into consideration, we believe this year will close with moderate but steady economic growth and will continue that trend as we enter 2012. And, since the temp industry is considered a leading economic indicator, it is great to see the sector continue to post year-over-year growth.”

Retail, the BLS said in its report, was responsible for more than a third of the private-sector job growth in November, adding 50,000 positions. Food and drink establishments added 33,000 jobs, offsetting the loss of 12,000 hotel and accommodation jobs.

Healthcare, which has averaged 27,000 new jobs a month over the last year, increased by 17,000. Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up in November (+33,000). Modest job gains continued in temporary help services.

Manufacturing and construction businesses were essentially flat, as they have been for months. Hours for manufacturing workers declined by  0.2 hours to 40.3 hours, offsetting a 0.2 hour gain in the previous month. Factory overtime remained at 3.2 hours in November.

Payroll and HR services firm ADP spread around a little holiday cheer this morning when the company said 206,000 new jobs were added to private payrolls this month.

It came as a surprise to economists who had predicted a more modest increase of about 130,000, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires. In addition, ADP revised its October private-sector growth number by 20,000 to 130,000.

The ADP report sparked a stock rally that ignited after it became known that the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks were coordinating efforts to help Europe’s debt crisis. The Dow rose more than 400 points, settling at just under that after lunch in New York.

While the numbers don’t often sync well with the official numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor, ADP’s National Employment Report offers guidance about the monthly government report. That report is due out Friday morning. Before today’s ADP report, estimates of what the Labor Department would show ranged from around 100,000 to 130,000. After the release, Reuters reported Deutsche Bank raised its forecast  to 150,000, while Capital Economics adjusted its 1000,000 estimate to 140,000.

The Reuters report also noted the long-running debate among economists over the validity of the various jobs numbers. ADP and its partner in the national report Macroeconomic Advisers produce its job growth estimates from ADP’s payroll processing data. The company handles the payroll for more than 500,000 business clients in the U.S. The official report, produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is derived from a survey of payroll data from some 140,000 businesses and governments.

The ADP report says most of November’s job growth was in the service sector, which added 178,000 positions. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees accounted for 95,000 of those jobs. Businesses from 50-499 workers added 67,000 service jobs.

The goods-producing sector added 28,000 workers. All the gain came from employers with fewer than 500 workers. The biggest employers, those with 500 and more employees, dropped 4,000 jobs during the month.

Tempering the strong jobs growth news from ADP is a Conference Board report showing a sixth consecutive month of fewer jobs being advertised online. The Conference Board’s Help Wanted OnLine survey said 76,200 fewer jobs were posted online in November than in October.

“The November decline in labor demand, following on the heels of the drops for the previous five months, is not good news for the labor market,” said June Shelp, vice president at The Conference Board.

During the month 3,857,200 jobs were listed online, according to the data compiled by Wanted Technologies.

Also released this morning was the monthly layoff report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The firm said U.S. employers announced job cuts totaling 42,474, down 0.7 percent from 42,759 in October. Announced layoffs so far this year are ahead of the total for all of 2010, the firm said. Including the November number, the total this year is 564,297. The total for 2010 was 529,973.

Most of the layoffs this year have come from government, the Challenger report says. Some 180,000 layoffs were announced there. The financial sector was a distant second with 56,000 announced layoffs.