The U.S. Labor
Department informed on Friday that nonfarm payrolls climbed by 216,000 in December
after a downwardly revised 173,000 jump in November. This was the sharpest monthly rise in three
months.
According to
the report, the largest jobs advances occurred in government (+52,000), health
care (+38,000), social assistance (+21,000), and construction (+17,000). Meanwhile,
employment declined in transportation and warehousing (-23,000).
The
unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7 per cent in December.
Economists had expected
the nonfarm payrolls to rise by 170,000 and the jobless rate to edge up to 3.8
per cent.
The labor force
participation rate dropped to 62.5 per
cent in December from an unrevised 62.8 per cent in the previous month, while hourly earnings for
private-sector workers increased by 0.4 per cent m-o-m (or $0.15) to $34.27, the
same pace as in November. Economists had anticipated the average hourly earnings to grow by 0.3 per cent
m-o-m in December.
Over the year, the average hourly earnings soared 4.1 per
cent in December, following an unrevised 4.0 per cent surge in the previous month. This marked
the first acceleration in annual average hourly earnings growth in six months
and represented the strongest gain since September (+4.2 per cent). Economists
had predicted the annual wage to increase by 3.9 per cent in December.
The
average workweek decreased by 0.1 hour to 34.3 hours last month, marginally below economists' forecast of 34.4 hours.