For the month of December, private sector jobs across America declined by 84,000, which is the smallest drop in jobs recorded since March 2008, and in addition, service providers actually managed to add more jobs during the month. The figures have been shared by a national employment report published in Wednesday, commissioned and released by the payroll company Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers.

On the other hand, the US non-manufacturing sector managed to expand during December, but not as much as expected, as per the data released on Wednesday by the Institute for Supply Management.

The loss reported by ADP is just below the 90,000 job cuts predicted by economists for the month.

"We're clearly moving now in the right direction", said Joel Prakken, Chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, which compiles the survey for ADP. He is expecting the payrolls to take a positive turn during 2010's first quarter and gain strength as the second quarter rolls in.

While the ADP looks at only private sector data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases non-farm payroll data which is expected to be out on Friday, and will include Government sector employees.