The U.S. added 192,000 nonfarm, private-sector jobs in January, according to the national employment report released today by Automatic Data Processing Inc. (NASD: ADP). However, the number of new jobs reported for December was revised downward by 30,000 jobs to 185,000.

Service-providing jobs rose by 177,000 in January. The goods-producing sector added 15,000 jobs.

“The job market is slowly, but steadily, improving,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, which produces the report for ADP. “Monthly job gains appear to have accelerated from near 150,000 to closer to 175,000. Construction is finally kicking into gear and more than offsetting the weakness in manufacturing. The recent gains may be overstating any improvement, particularly in the context of recent revivals in growth at the start of the past three years, but the gains are encouraging nonetheless.”

Small businesses, those with fewer than 50 workers, added 115,000 jobs in January. Large business, those with 500 or more workers, lost 2,000 jobs. Midsize businesses added 79,000 jobs.

The report is based on an anonymous subset of 416,000 ADP clients in the U.S. that employ more than 24 million U.S. workers.