US companies ramped up hiring in December and wage gains continued to cool, consistent with an outlook for sustained economic growth and diminishing inflation. Private payrolls increased 164,000 last month, the most since August, according to figures published Thursday by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Stanford Digital Economy Lab. The reading came in above all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The advance was led by services sectors including leisure and hospitality and education and health care, while manufacturing cut jobs for a fourth straight month. The West and the ... (full story)