Link Securities | According to the Department of Labour, in December the US economy generated 50,000 net non-farm jobs, slightly less than the 56,000 jobs created in November, and below the consensus forecast by FactSet analysts, which was 55,000 new jobs. In the month analysed, the private sector generated 37,000 net jobs (50,000 jobs in November), while the public sector created 13,000 jobs (6,000 jobs in November). Analysts had projected 42,500 new net private jobs in December.
It should be noted that non-farm employment for October was revised downwards by 68,000 jobs to a figure of -173,000 jobs, while for November it was revised downwards by 8,000 jobs to +56,000 jobs. With these revisions, non-farm employment generated in October and November combined is 76,000 jobs lower than previously reported.
For the full year 2025, non-farm employment increased by 584,000 jobs in the US, corresponding to an average monthly increase of 49,000 jobs (versus 2 million net jobs in 2024; 166,666 net new jobs per month).
In turn, the unemployment rate fell in December to 4.4% from 4.6% in November (revised down from the initially estimated 4.6%), thus improving on the consensus of analysts, who had expected a reading of 4.5%. In December, the number of unemployed fell by 278,000 to 7.50 million, while employment rose by 232,000 to 163.99 million. On the other hand, the labour force fell by 46,000 to 171.50 million, reducing the labour participation rate by 0.1 percentage points compared to November, to 62.4%.
Meanwhile, average hourly earnings rose by 0.3% in December compared to November, while year-on-year they grew by 3.8% (3.6% in November). In this case, analysts had expected a monthly increase similar to the actual figure of 0.3% and a slightly lower year-on-year increase of 3.6%.
Finally, it should be noted that the average number of hours worked per week fell in December to 34.2 hours from 34.3 hours in November, which was in line with consensus expectations.
