Jobs Report Shows US Labor Market Continues to Weaken

The job market improved by one measure but stayed relatively slow in December.

U.S. employers added 50,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate edged down to 4.4% from a downwardly-revised 4.5% in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. The relatively slow job growth was slightly below the downwardly-revised 56,000 added in November, and was less than the 73,000 jobs forecasters had expected. Additionally, the unemployment rate was lower than the 4.5% forecast according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

The unemployment rate fell for the first time since June, halting its recent upward trend. A downward revision lowered it to 4.5% instead of 4.6% in November as well. The rate in December was the same as September although higher than the 4% unemployment rate at the beginning of the year.

The slow job growth and elevated unemployment rate continued to show the effects of President Donald Trump’s economic policies, especially tariffs, which have discouraged hiring, and his crackdown on immigration, which has reduced the number of available workers. Job growth has slowed down significantly after averaging 147,000 workers per month through April of last year, when Trump announced his far-reaching “Liberation Day” tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner.

Job growth in the previous months was lower than previously thought: the bureau revised its job growth estimates for October and November by 76,000 total. The job market was shaken up in those months by the record-long government shutdown.

Officials at the Federal Reserve have cut the central bank’s interest rate by three-quarters of a point since September in an effort to boost hiring and prevent the labor slowdown from becoming a wave of mass layoffs. Policymakers are slated to meet Jan. 27 and 29 to set monetary policy, and will likely scrutinize Friday’s report when deciding whether to cut interest rates again.