WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. private employers continued to hire at a steady pace in October, even though there are still worker shortages.

According to the ADP National Employment Report, private payrolls increased by 571,000 positions last month. According to ADP National Employment Report, September’s data shows that 523,000 jobs were added in September instead of originally reporting 568,000. Reuters economists had predicted that private payrolls would rise by 400,000.

Moody’s Analytics, a joint developer of ADP’s report, was published before the Labor Department’s much more detailed and watched employment report for Oct. on Friday. It has an erroneous record of predicting private payrolls in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) employment report. This is due to methodology differences.

While economists predict that October will see a rebound in hiring, there are still persistent workforce shortages. End August saw 10.4 million open jobs.

In October, labor market indicators improved mainly because of the significant decrease in the number of COVID-19-related infections caused by the Delta variant.

For the first time in 20 months, initial claims for unemployment benefits fell below 300,000.

Conference Board’s Labor Market Differential – which is based on data from consumers about whether they think jobs are available or difficult to find – reached a 21 year high. In addition, the Institute for Supply Management saw a rise in its measure of factory job satisfaction.

A Reuters survey by economists found that private payrolls increased by 400,000 jobs last month. As government employment is forecast to rebound by 50,000 it would mean that overall payrolls will rise by 450,000 jobs.

September saw 194,000 new jobs, which was the lowest in 9 months. The labor supply is stable despite the end of federally-funded unemployment benefits. Republicans and businesses had claimed that they were discourageive to jobless people seeking work.