2018 Ends with 312,000 Jobs Created in December; Strong Year for the Job Market

1/7/19
 
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from The White House,
1/4/19:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its final monthly Employment Situation Report of 2018, marking a great year for American workers and the economy as a whole. Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 312,000 jobs in December (see figure), far exceeding market expectations (180,000) as well as besting the average monthly additions from 2017 (182,000) and 2016 (195,000).

Continuing the historic streak of positive jobs gains, 2018 experienced more job creation than the previous two years, with 2.6 million new jobs over the course of the year compared with 2.2 million in 2017 and 2.3 million in 2016. Furthermore, this growth was consistently strong throughout the year; the economy has added over 100,000 jobs every month in 2018, just the second time since 2000 that this has occurred for a full calendar year. Since President Trump was elected in November 2016, the U.S. economy has created 5 million jobs.

There were job gains across many industries in December, including significant gains in education and health services (82,000), leisure and hospitality (55,000), and in manufacturing (32,000). Manufacturing has been a bright spot since President Trump’s election, and now averages 20,000 new jobs per month compared to 8,000 per month in the four years prior.

Wages are also rising, indicating that workers are taking home bigger paychecks.

A separate household survey released by BLS shows that although the unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) to 3.9 percent in December, it went up for the right reasons: more workers are coming off the sidelines and looking for work, signaling that the U.S. economy continues to hum along. The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of the civilian non-institutional population who are in the labor force (either employed or looking for work), rose by 0.2 p.p. over the month to 63.1 percent in December. Despite the unemployment rate uptick, the unemployment rate remains near historic lows. This is only the 13th month since 1970 that the unemployment rate has been below 4 percent, with 8 of these instances occurring under President Trump in 2018.

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