HousingZone.com and many other outlets cheered November job figures from payroll administration vendor ADP, which showed 206,000 jobs added, including 16,000 in construction.

The Wall Street Journal noted in an item in its daily economics report, however, that economists have begun to treat the ADP report cautiously.

"The increase in November was the largest monthly gain since last December and nearly twice the average monthly gain since May when employment decelerated sharply," ADP said. That was, as HousingZone noted, "well above what economists were projecting."

The ADP number "stunned economy-watchers," the Journal said, but added that "economists weren’t quick to change their forecasts for Friday’s nonfarm payroll number (which includes both private and government jobs)."

"Chalk it up to 'once bitten, twice shy' caution," the Journal said. "As economists will tell you, for any given month, ADP can vary widely from the official jobs tally put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics partly because of different methods for collecting data."