U.S. businesses created the fewest new jobs in 7 months, ADP says. Hiring slowed in the summer.

JUST IN: US private payrolls rose just 38,000 in August, the smallest gain in seven months, as ADP data points to a sharp summer slowdown in hiring.

Thirty eight thousand. That's all the new jobs American private employers added in August, according to ADP, the smallest gain in seven months.

ADP processes paychecks for a huge chunk of the country, so when its numbers go quiet, it usually means hiring desks have gone quiet too. And this isn't one soft month in isolation. The firm says the whole summer slowed down, which turns a blip into a trend.

Why should you care? Because the Federal Reserve reads this stuff like scripture. A cooling job market is exactly the kind of data that gets rate cut conversations louder, and Jerome Powell has spent months saying he's watching employment as closely as inflation. Traders will now stare down the official government payrolls report on Friday to see if it tells the same story.

Thirty eight thousand jobs in a country of over three hundred million people. That's not a slowdown, that's a stall warning.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.