Thanks in part to growing consumer demand, the U.S. economy added 200,000 new jobs in December, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and the official unemployment rate decreased to 8.5% from the revised 8.7% rate in November.
The results were above economists’ expectations for 150,000 new jobs. Labor experts estimate that approximately 150,000 new jobs are needed each month just to keep up with changes in the labor market, and that about 250,000 new jobs are needed each month to quickly bring down the unemployment rate.
Throughout December, there were signs that labor market was improving, including better-than-expected holiday sales and a drop in weekly applications for unemployment benefits. While the extent to which holiday retail sales improved will become clearer in mid-to-late January, applications for unemployment benefits fell to a seasonably adjusted 372,000 in the last week of December, 11% lower than the same period in 2010.
In December, 50,000 jobs were added in the transportation-warehousing industry, 23,000 were added in manufacturing, and perhaps most encouraging, 23,000 new jobs were added in the struggling construction industry.
The December numbers might be indicative of a holiday surge, as job figures for the previous two months were down graded. For October, the Labor Department revised downward the number of new jobs from 112,000 to 100,000, and November job figures were revised downward from 120,000 to 100,000.
For all of 2011, 1.6 million new jobs were added, an improvement over the 940,000 new jobs added in 2010.
Meanwhile, an estimated 2.1 million new jobs are forecast for 2012.
Non-farm payrolls now stand at 131.9 million, which is 6.1 million less than in January of 2008, the month in which the unfolding recession began to impact the labor market.
