U.S. employers add 216,000 jobs in December amid slowing job growth
The job growth in total nonfarm payroll employment for October was revised down by 45,000 to 105,000, and it was revised down by 26,000 to 173,000 for November.
WASHINGTON: U.S. employers added 216,000 jobs in December 2023 amid slowing job growth, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7 percent, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday.
The report noted that employment continued to trend up in government, health care, social assistance and construction, while transportation and warehousing lost jobs.
The job growth in total nonfarm payroll employment for October was revised down by 45,000 to 105,000, and it was revised down by 26,000 to 173,000 for November.
“Payrolls grew by 216K in December, topping consensus expectations by 41K, but downward revisions to job growth in the prior two months took the shine off the reading,” Sarah House and Michael Pugliese, economists at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in an analysis.
On a monthly average, payroll employment rose by 225,000 in 2023, much less than a gain of 399,000 in 2022, indicating a cooling job market amid high interest rates.
In December, the unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent, and the number of unemployed persons was essentially unchanged at 6.3 million. These measures are higher than a year earlier when the jobless rate was 3.5 percent, and the number of unemployed persons was 5.7 million.
The labor force participation rate, at 62.5 percent, decreased by 0.3 percentage points in December, the report showed.
The latest monthly employment report was released two days after payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported private companies in the United States added 164,000 jobs in December amid slowing job growth.
“While wages didn’t drive the recent bout of inflation, now that pay growth has retreated, any risk of a wage-price spiral has all but disappeared,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
The December employment report showed that average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 15 cents, or 0.4 percent, to 34.27 U.S. dollars. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 4.1 percent.
“The labor market is no longer as tight as it was earlier in the recovery as signaled by slower job growth, less turnover and slower wage gains,” according to the economists at Wells Fargo Securities.
“We suspect the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) will keep the fed funds rate unchanged over the next few months as it awaits additional confirmation that inflation is durably on its way to 2 percent,” they noted.
The median unemployment rate projection in the Fed’s newly released quarterly summary of economic projections would rise somewhat from 3.8 percent at the end of 2023 to 4.1 percent at the end of 2024.
-Xinhua
