December non farm payrolls come in well and truly short of expectations
The US added 199,000 new jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' non farm payrolls report, well and truly short of the 400,000 expected by analysts.
However, November's non farm payrolls figure was revised up to show that 249,000 jobs were created, up from 210,000, while October's print was also lifted to 648,000 from 546,000.
The US unemployment rate also dropped to 3.9%, down from 4.2% in November as employment continued to trend up in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, manufacturing, construction and transportation and warehousing.
The labour force participation rate was unchanged at 61.9% in December but remained 1.5 percentage points lower than in February 2020.