WASHINGTON, DC-The Department of Labor will be releasing October's unemployment figures tomorrow—the last report from the agency until after the presidential election. Payroll processor ADP has released its take on October and if its calculations hold true, the Labor Department report should be a respectable one (for this particular economic cycle, that is).

ADP has been a de facto canary in the coalmine for unemployment statistics for years, of course. This release is different because the company, in collaboration with Moody's Analytics, tweaked its processes and expanded its reporting to be more like the government's. The company reports that the U.S. economy added 158,000 jobs in October.

"Businesses are adding consistently to their payrolls, " Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said in a prepared statement. "October’s job gains were in line with the average monthly gains of the past two years, with sturdy albeit less than stellar growth across most industries and company sizes." The professional/business services category created 35,000 of those positions, followed by trade/transportation/utilities and then construction, at 24,000 and 23,000, respectively.

Last month the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added 114,000 jobs, moving the needle enough to create the 8% unemployment rate to rest at 7.8%. The main sectors to see growth were health care, transportation and warehousing, according to Labor -- there was little movement in most other major industries.

However, ADP and Labor have differed in their calculations of the employed labor force before. It will be telling to see what number Labor reports on Friday. Meanwhile, yet another job indicator suggests the economy is still in slow-job creation mode. The October Employment Index, part of Intuit's Small Business Revenue and Employment Indexes, suggests that small business employment decreased by 0.05%, for approximately 10,000 fewer jobs created in October than September.