Employers stuck the landing in 2024, finishing the year with a bounce of hiring after a quarter filled with disruption.
The economy added 256,000 jobs in December, seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department reported on Friday. It was a better-than-expected number amid a labor market that has been slowly cooling for two years. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1 percent.
Although it’s too early to call it a trend, the strong result — unclouded by the strikes and storms of previous months — may signal renewed vigor after months of caution among both workers and businesses.
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Wages still strong: Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent over the month, in line with expectations, amounting to a 3.9 percent gain since last year.
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Growth powered by the usual suspects: Health care, government, social assistance, and leisure and hospitality were the main drivers of the strong showing. But retail returned from what had been a largely flat year in the sector, adding 43,000 jobs.
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Labor force participation recedes: The share of people between the ages of 25 and 54 who were either working or looking for work edged down to 83.4 percent, and is now half a point lower than the 83.9 percent it reached earlier last year. The drop was led entirely by men; the participation rate for prime-age women rose.
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Analysts blown away: “American exceptionalism is the primary takeaway from one of the more remarkable years in labor market dynamics over the past half a century,” wrote Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting and consulting firm RSM. “It is hard to say anything negative about the details of this report,” added Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at the investment banking firm Jefferies.
