The U.S. economy added 292,000 jobs in December, and unemployment remained unchanged at 5.0 percent. December’s jobs report was nothing short of stellar.
In fact, October and November’s strong jobs numbers were revised upwards 9,000 jobs and 41,000 jobs respectively. That’s 50,000 jobs not previously reported. And as a result, payroll growth increased to 2.7 million in the year 2015. While short of the record 3.1 million created in 2014, it seems clear that the economy is on the right track with regard to job creation, even if the recovery is slowing its pace from the summer, according to GDP data.
The drop in the unemployment rate for blacks was significant. Blacks, who typically suffer higher rates of unemployment than other racial groups, saw the black unemployment rate decline in December to 8.3 percent, down 1.1 percent point from November and down nearly 2 percent from last year.
I spoke to economist Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute's Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, about the decline in black unemployment. She cautioned that it’s hard to tell how much is real or sustainable employment growth in one month. As we always say here, never put too much stock into one month’s numbers.
But, Wilson noted that we’ve seen bigger decreases in black unemployment in recent years thanks to “the economy getting better as a whole.” When the unemployment rate decreases 1 percentage point nationally, it usually translates to about a 2 percentage point drop in black unemployment, she explained. “You get bigger changes in African American unemployment rate when the labor market gets tighter, because they are the ones left who are still looking for work.” Yet, the disparity between unemployment rates remain: The black unemployment rate is still almost double the white unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.
As they looked more closely at today’s data, however, economists noted that one number was a distinct downer. After a long overdue rise in the fall, average hourly earnings actually fell 1 cent last month.
"Hiring got a bounce in 2015, while wages stayed flat" PBS NewsHour 1/8/2016
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The U.S. economy added 2.6 million jobs overall in 2015, part of a two-year gain that was the best since the late '90s. Yet wage growth remained relatively slow. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez explores the final jobs report of last year and more with Judy Woodruff.
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