US job gains disappoint, unemployment holds at 4.1%

NEW YORK: The US economy’s job creation ability disappointed in December, despite solid hiring in manufacturing and construction, according to government data reported Friday.

But with the country believed to be near full employment, the jobless rate still held steady at its 17-year low of 4.1 percent. Employers added just 148,000 new hires in the final month of the year, all but 2,000 of them in the private sectorfar below economists’ expectations of 200,000 jobs or more.

Those upbeat forecasts had been boosted by data from payroll services firms ADP Thursday that reported private hiring to have surged by 250,000 in the month, although the ADP report is known to be volatile. Revisions to the October and November data also subtracted 9,000 jobs from the economy, making the picture for the fourth quarter even more disappointing.

Job creation in the final three months of the year averaged 204,000, the Labor Department said. The slowing could point to an economy

nearly at full employment that is finding it hard to find workers to fill open positions, a sentiment seen in many business surveys.

Many firms have reported the need to raise wages to attract new workers, and that was reflected in the increase in average hourly earnings to $26.63 from $26.54 in the prior month, and from $25.98 at the end of 2016. That marks a 2.5 percent increase in wages over last year, slightly ahead of consumer inflation.

The manufacturing sector added 25,000 new jobs in December, while the construction sector added 30,000, and health care added 29,000. But retail employment fell by 20,000, and professional and business services slowed sharply to a gain of just 19,000 after two months, with increases of close to 50,000. — AFP