The notoriously unreliable private sector job report looks good today. If Friday's job report looks like it will be better then maybe the administration won't call for another big G&S takedown tomorrow and Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. private employers added more jobs than expected in January, the 12th consecutive month that companies took on staff, adding to hopes that the weak American labor market is slowly improving.

The private sector added 187,000 jobs in January, compared with a downwardly revised 247,000 jobs in December, a report by payrolls processor ADP Employer Services showed on Wednesday.

The ADP figures come ahead of the government's more comprehensive January labor market report on Friday, which includes both public and private sector employment.

But ADP figures for December -- both initial and revised -- turned out to be much stronger than the government report showed, adding to doubts about the reliability of ADP as a predictor of payrolls.

Markets showed little reaction to the data, and some analysts said investors could be wary of ADP after December's numbers.