Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the jobs report for December. Read the full thread here.

The labor market stuck the landing!!!
Not much soft about it.

We end the year with a strong jobs report:
– Payroll employment up 256k
– Unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%
– Labor force participation rate held steady
– Overall and prime-age employment-to-population ratios ticked up

#NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 7:46 AM

The labor market entered 2024 historically strong and softened just the tiniest bit over the year:
– job growth up 186,000 on average over the year
– unemployment ticked up a bit but remained solid
– prime-age labor force participation ticked up as did women’s prime-age employment rates
#NumbersDay

— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM

Job gains were most notable in health care and social assistance. After an unusually weak November due in part to an unusually late Thanksgiving week, retail sales rebounded in December. Leisure and hospitality and the public sector also recorded gains over the month.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 8:22 AM

Year-over-year nominal wage growth came in at 3.9% and has been slowly decelerating over the last couple of years. As workers seem less likely to quit in recent months, wage growth may continue to slow. At this point, growth remains consistent with productivity growth and the Fed inflation targets.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 8:30 AM

Today’s nominal wage growth is consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target and productivity growth but not strong enough to claw back the loss of labor’s share over the pandemic recovery. Still lots of room for wages to rise without putting upward pressure on Fed’s target.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 8:41 AM