The United States creates jobs, but at a too weak rate. The labor market of the world’s leading power added 50,000 new jobs in December, according to data published this Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data has left a bittersweet feeling among analysts, who projected a more robust evolution of hiring – they expected around 70,000 more.
On the contrary, the unemployment rate fell one tenth in December to 4.4%. Although it is historically low, its upward trend in recent months (it has risen four tenths since January) had aroused the concern of the Federal Reserve. The December data, therefore, helps those responsible for the US central bank to maintain their decision to pause rate cuts in the next meetings.
Where there is more concern is in the evolution of job creation. If the year of the pandemic is excluded, this December registered the lowest number of new jobs in at least a decade, according to official statistics.
The December figures also confirm the slowdown in the labor market during 2025. American companies created 584,000 jobs, the lowest number since 2003, not including the year of the pandemic, and far from the more than 2,012 million hires that were signed in 2024.
“The upward trend in food and beverage services, medical care and social services and assistance continued. On the contrary, retail trade lost jobs,” explains the agency dependent on the Department of Labor. Precisely, the contraction of employment in commerce, an essential activity in the United States economy, is generating some concern among analysts.
The US economy is growing at a good pace, spurred above all by massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI), which is taking the technology sector to record highs on the stock market and fueling the feeling that a new bubble is brewing. Activity seems to have vigorously resisted the commercial shock that the world has suffered this year. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, landed in the White House in January for his second term with an aggressive economic agenda. A few months after sitting in the Oval Office, he approved, last April, a barrage of tariffs on the entire world. It imposed tariffs of between 10% and 50% on everyone, which has affected thousands of companies inside and outside the country.
The tariffs have caused thousands of small and medium-sized American companies, which sourced products from other countries, either to market them directly or to process them industrially, have seen their purchases become more expensive overnight.
Statistics reveal the cooling of the labor market. By sectors, the restaurant industry added 27,000 jobs in December and the health sector, one of the sectors that has been hiring the most in recent quarters, added 21,000 jobs. “Retail trade lost 25,000 jobs in December. During the month, employment decreased in warehouses, clubs, supermalls and other general merchandise retail centers and in food and beverage retail centers,” figures that may be anticipating changes in consumer habits.
Another of the unknowns of the year-end labor data is checking how public sector jobs have evolved. “Federal government employment was virtually unchanged in December. Since peaking in January, federal government employment decreased by 277,000 contracts, or 9.2%.”
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, approved an Administration spending cut plan, which he named DOGE. He entrusted it to the technology magnate, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, who took the opportunity to cut thousands of jobs. He offered an incentivized leave plan to reduce the size of the administration.
This month’s data shipment incorporates the revision of the October and November statistics, influenced by the Government shutdown, due to the inability of Republicans and Democrats to agree to extend the budget. Dozens of government agencies were closed for eight weeks, which has affected November data collection. The new reading shows that in October and November some 76,000 fewer jobs were created than the provisional data published a few weeks ago.
The labor agency is rich in data: “Among major groups of workers, unemployment rates for adult men (3.9%), adult women (3.9%), teenagers (15.7%), whites (3.8%), blacks (7.5%), Asians (3.6%) and Hispanics (4.9%) showed little or no change over the month,” the labor office explains.
