The American economy added 256,000 jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This number of job additions was more than expected, as the Dow Jones Consensus predicted that December would have added only 155,000 jobs, CNBC reported.
Due to the better-than-expected job report, stocks fell on Friday. According to CNN, the Dow Jones fell over 650 points.
“The better-than-expected increase in jobs caused an immediate reaction in both stocks and bonds, with prices moving lower (and bond yields moving higher, as yields move inversely with price), as the Federal Reserve has even less of a reason to cut interest rates this year,” wrote Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, said in a note Friday, CNN reported.
The December unemployment rate was 4.1 percent. In November, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent.
“After increasing earlier in the year, the unemployment rate has been either 4.1 percent or 4.2 percent for the past 7 months,” the Bureau of Labor report said.
Almost 7 million people were unemployed in December.
The labor force participation rate was at 62.5 percent of the American population.
The unemployment rate for adult men was 3.7 percent and for women it was 3.8 percent.
In 2024, payroll employment increased by 2.2 million, which is an average of 186,000 jobs a month. This is a decrease from 2023, where 3 million payroll employment increased by 3 million, which is an average of 251,000 jobs monthly.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com. Follow Zachery on Twitter @zacheryschmidt2.
