U.S. employers added 199,000 jobs in December as the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, marking a second consecutive month of disappointing numbers:
An employee at a restaurant in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, puts up a sign on June 3, 2021, looking for workers with the promise of free food for new hires.
However, there were more positive signs as well. The unemployment rate fell to 3.9% in December from 4.2% the month before, while, job gains for October and November were revised upwards by a total of 141,000.a spike in new coronavirus infections"We view this as a small window between when the delta variant was fading and before the acceleration and rapid spread of the omicron variant," said Nela Richardson, chief economist of the payroll processing company ADP.
Businesses have struggled to find enough workers to meet demand, with restaurants, bars and hotels seeing some of the highest turnover.Many of those who quit in recent months are not leaving the workforce entirely but taking better jobs elsewhere. As a result, Bunker said it's a mistake to describe this churn as,"the great resignation." He prefers to call it,"the great job hop.
The number of people working or looking for work increased in December by 168,000, after a big gain the month before. There are still 2.1 million fewer people in the workforce now than there were in February of 2020, before the pandemic took root in the U.S.