Economy

mahatmakanejeeves

(60,961 posts) Fri Jan 5, 2024, 03:19 AM Jan 2024

December jobs report expected to show hiring slowdown, declining wage gains

Yahoo Finance

December jobs report expected to show hiring slowdown, declining wage gains

Josh Schafer
Thu, January 4, 2024, 3:25 PM EST • 3 min read

The December jobs report is set for release Friday morning and is expected to show more signs of a cooling labor market to finish 2023.

The monthly labor report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET, is expected to show nonfarm payrolls rose by 175,000 in December while the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8% from the previous month, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In November, the US economy added 199,000 jobs while unemployment unexpectedly fell to 3.7%.

Here are the key numbers Wall Street will be looking at, according to data from Bloomberg:

• Nonfarm payrolls: +175,000 vs. +199,000 previously

• Unemployment rate: 3.8% vs. 3.7% previously

• Average hourly earnings, month-on-month: +0.3% vs. +0.4% previously

• Average hourly earnings, year-on-year: +3.9% vs. +4.0% previously

• Average weekly hours worked: 34.4 vs. 34.4 previously

The report will serve as a test for whether the market can shake off a dismal start to the new year after a rally to end 2023. Investor belief that the Federal Reserve can achieve a so-called soft landing, where inflation retreats to the Fed's 2% goal without a recession, drove stocks close to all-time highs last month.

"We expect the December employment report to show slower job growth and a further moderation in nominal wage growth, both something the Federal Reserve wants to see as it attempts to engineer a soft-landing," Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in note on Thursday.

{snip}