The U.S. economy saw modest job growth in December as employers hired at a steady pace amid economic uncertainty.
The Labor Department on Friday reported that employers added 50,000 jobs in December. That figure was cooler than the expectations of economists polled by LSEG, who projected 60,000 jobs would be added for the month.
The unemployment rate declined slightly to 4.4% in December. That reading was lower than economists' expectations of a 4.5% rate. The decline comes after the unemployment rate was initially reported as rising to 4.6% in November, which was the highest it's been since September 2021, though it was revised to 4.5% after the BLS made a routine population adjustment for the latest report.
Revisions were made to the payroll numbers for the prior two months, with October's report revised down by 68,000 from a loss of 105,000 to a loss of 173,000 jobs; while November's report was revised down by 8,000 from a gain of 64,000 to 56,000.
Taken together, employment in October and November was 76,000 jobs lower than previously reported.