The number of jobs created in the US grew only modestly in December, as a weak year for the employment market in the world’s largest economy drew to a close.
Employers added 50,000 jobs in the final month of 2025, according to Labor Department data, which was fewer than expected. But the unemployment rate dipped to 4.4%.
Job gains last year were the smallest since 2020, when the Covid pandemic led to widespread cuts.
Businesses have been operating in an environment marked by US President Donald Trump’s dramatic policy changes, including tariffs, an immigration crackdown and cuts to government spending.
There are so many problems in this article.
With a 4.3% increase in GDP and growing exports, the consumer spending should not be steady but increasing.
OK that sounds pretty bad for a job market of around 171 million workers. That’s only 1/3‰ And only 600,000 new jobs for the year with an estimated population growth of 1.6 million!
Now this is REALLY bad!! December is normally the highest job creation month of the year due to the holidays.
December being only average, and only a third of the average the previous year, and job creation being only a third the population growth indicates an actually declining economy of workers per capita!
Despite this we know the GDP rose 4.3%, but that is very much inflated by AI which may be a bubble and has signs of trickling out, as major companies have difficulties monetizing AI.
Unfortunately we also know that many people are currently leaving the job market as people give up on finding a job, so instead they try to create a better work/life balance:
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/08/economy/us-jobs-report-preview-december
I’ve mentioned this before, but I expect job numbers for January and February to be horrible. And the idea that the Trump is good, will probably be shown to be clearly false.