Banca March: Job growth in December rebounds to 256,000 new jobs, above the 165,000 expected by the market and also above November’s 212,000 (revised down from 227,000). The employment rate fell by one tenth of a percentage point to 4.1% and the total participation rate remained stable at 62.5%. Moreover, wages climbed at a pace of 3.9% year-on-year (0.3% month-on-month) maintaining a reasonable pace of growth, one tenth below last month. Sectorally, the services side continues to dominate job creation (especially health and education) while the more industrial segments remain weak, destroying jobs in most cases. On the other hand, public employment continues to support job creation (33,000 new jobs) in the last full month of the Biden administration.

Pending the annual revision of data in the February release (which will cover the period April 2023 to March 2024), the US economy has created 2.2 million jobs in the past year, returning to the average pace of pre-pandemic job creation.