Private employers added 114,000 jobs in July, topping economists' expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

COMMENTS:

ANTHONY KARYDAKIS, SENIOR U.S. ECONOMIST, COMMERZBANK AG, NEW YORK

The track record of the ADP to predict the BLS payrolls figure has been close to dismal. If we view there is a relationship between ADP and the government's payroll survey, the relationship between the two has been completely broken.

There is no doubt that the recovery has stalled here. Something fundamentally is going on, not just the supply-chain disruption and the weather.

Right now there is an average 146,000 gain in payrolls in the past four months. We had an average gain of 65,000 over the past two months versus (an average) 230,000 gain in the prior two months. It's not that bad but we are probably moving to an underlying trend of job growth in the private sector that will fail to stabilize the unemployment rate. We need at least 125,000.

BOB ANDRES, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT MERION WEALTH PARTNERS IN BERWYN, PENNSYLVANIA

This is transitory. The broader picture is still that unemployment looks to be heading up and we don't have an economic base here to bring unemployment down. The simple answer is this number is meaningless.

JOHN CANALLY, INVESTMENT STRATEGIST AND ECONOMIST, LPL FINANCIAL, BOSTON

Expectations for this kind of data has been lower. It doesn't suggest that you're in a recession at all; it doesn't suggest a double dip recession at all. That being said, employers are still being cautious.

We're not falling off the table, but we're not booming. This ADP report has been all over the map. It was good for a while, then it stopped being good. I think the market has largely dismissed this one.

What happens with this ADP report is it does collect data from ADP itself, but it also takes the claims data, and the number of claims fell between June and July. So it's been all over the map. If it were negative data, we would've seen a 2-percent drop. But I think the markets are largely numbed.

OMER ESINER, CHIEF MARKET ANALYST, COMMONWEALTH FOREIGN EXCHANGE, WASHINGTON

It is mostly in line with expectations. It is encouraging that the number did not disappoint but it is still hard to be overly optimistic given the earlier report on layoffs from Challenger. On balance investors are still nervous before Friday's broader payrolls data.

KURT KARL, CHIEF ECONOMIST, SWISS RE, NEW YORK

It's better than expected so that's good news. It would be really disappointing if it were 50,000. This implies that employment growth continues. It's weak but not anemic. It's good but not great news for the economy.

THEODORE LITTLETON, ECONOMIST, IFR ECONOMICS, A UNIT OF THOMSON REUTERS

That's roughly consistent with the consensus expectation of a 100k gain, and shouldn't alter projections for Friday's BLS figures.

Jobs