This post first appeared on FloatingPath
This month’s U.S. employment situation post will be a more condensed and simplified version than usual.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports in its monthly employment situation release that 74k payrolls were added during the month of December. This is an extremely weak reading and is the lowest single month jobs gain since May 2011. Job gains in October and November were revised to 200k and 241k, respectively.
The unemployment rate (U-3) declined to 6.7% from 7.0% in November, while the broader underemployment rate (U-6) was unchanged at 13.1%. With so few new payrolls though, the falling unemployment rate is more attributable to a reduction of workers in the labor force.
The rest of the data from the report are in the usual charts below.
