December NFP +312,000

Today’s jobs report was a blow-out. The US economy added 312,000 net new jobs last month. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% thanks to more people entering the labor force. Interestingly, today’s jobs report had the highest jobs-to-population ratio in exactly 10 years.

The jobless rate, which was last higher in June, rose for the right reason as 419,000 new workers entered the workforce and the labor force participation rate increased to 63.1 percent. The participation level was up 0.2 percentage points from November and 0.4 percentage points compared with a year earlier.

A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons held steady at 7.6 percent.

In addition to the big job gains, wages jumped 3.2 percent from a year ago and 0.4 percent over the previous month. The year-over-year increase is tied with October for the best since April 2009. The average work week rose 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting job growth of just 176,000, though they projected the unemployment rate to fall to 3.6 percent. The wage number also was well above expectations of 3 percent on the year and 0.3 percent from November.

The report for November was revised higher by 21,000, and the one for October was revised upward by 37,000.

Here’s a look at the growth in non-farm payrolls:

Here’s the unemployment rate:

In the last year, average hourly earnings are up 3.2%.

Posted by on January 4th, 2019 at 8:54 am


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