Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press
under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that
the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Statement of
William J. Wiatrowski
Acting Commissioner
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Friday, January 4, 2019
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 312,000 in
December, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent. Health
care, food services and drinking places, construction,
manufacturing, and retail trade added jobs over the month. Job
growth totaled 2.6 million in 2018, compared with a gain of 2.2
million jobs in 2017.
Incorporating revisions for October and November, which
increased payrolls by 58,000, monthly job gains averaged 254,000
over the past 3 months.
In December, health care added 50,000 jobs. Within the
industry, employment rose in ambulatory care services (+38,000)
and hospitals (+7,000). Health care added 346,000 jobs in 2018,
more than the gain of 284,000 jobs in 2017.
Employment in food services and drinking places rose by
41,000 in December. Over the year, the industry added 235,000
jobs, in line with the increase of 261,000 jobs in 2017.
Construction added 38,000 jobs in December, following no
change in November. Within the industry, job gains occurred in
heavy and civil engineering (+16,000) and nonresidential
specialty trade contractors (+16,000) in December. Employment in
construction increased by 280,000 in 2018, compared with an
increase of 250,000 in 2017.
Manufacturing added 32,000 jobs in December. Most of this
increase occurred in the durable goods component (+19,000), with
job gains in fabricated metal products (+7,000) and computer and
electronic products (+4,000). Nondurable goods manufacturing
added 13,000 jobs over the month. In 2018, manufacturing
employment increased by 284,000, with about three-fourths of the
gain in durable goods industries. Manufacturing had added
207,000 jobs in 2017.
Employment in retail trade increased by 24,000 in December.
Job gains occurred in general merchandise stores (+15,000) and
automobile dealers (+6,000). Employment in sporting goods,
hobby, book, and music stores declined by 9,000 over the month.
Retail trade employment rose by 92,000 in 2018, after little net
change in 2017 (-29,000).
Employment continued to trend up in professional and
business services in December (+43,000). In 2018, this industry
added 583,000 jobs, outpacing the gain of 458,000 jobs in 2017.
Employment in other major industries--including mining,
wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information,
financial activities, and government--showed little change over
the month.
Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm
payrolls rose by 11 cents in December to $27.48. Over the past
12 months, average hourly earnings have grown by 3.2 percent.
From November 2017 to November 2018, the Consumer Price Index
for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased by 2.2 percent (on a
seasonally adjusted basis).
Turning to measures from the household survey, the
unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent in December, and the
number of unemployed people increased to 6.3 million. A year
earlier, the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, and the
unemployment level was 6.6 million.
Among the unemployed, the number who had been searching for
work for 27 weeks or longer, at 1.3 million, was essentially
unchanged over the month but was down by 205,000 over the year.
In December, these long-term unemployed accounted for 20.5
percent of the total unemployed.
The labor force participation rate, at 63.1 percent,
changed little in December. The employment-population ratio was
60.6 percent for the third month in a row. Over the year, both
the labor force participation rate and the employment-population
ratio were up by 0.4 percentage point.
In December, 4.7 million people were working part time for
economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time
workers), little changed from the previous month but down by
329,000 over the year.
Among those neither working nor looking for work in
December, 1.6 million were considered marginally attached to the
labor force, little changed from a year earlier. Discouraged
workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed no
jobs were available for them, numbered 375,000 in December, down
by 99,000 from a year earlier. (People who are marginally
attached to the labor force had not looked for work in the 4
weeks prior to the survey but wanted a job, were available to
work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 months.)
Following our regular annual practice, seasonal adjustment
factors for the household survey data have been updated with the
release of December data. Seasonally adjusted estimates going
back 5 years--to January 2014--were subject to revision.
In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 312,000
in December, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent.