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.
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The Fed's One True Fear! God forbid the oligarchs have to take a haircut...
