We need some good news at the end of a troubling week in the global economy and a China driven weak stock market. And unexpectedly but happily, we received some this morning about the growing U.S. economy.
So let's see what is going on with today's report on U.S. employment. It's good news for a change, even though wages aren't yet showing increases. Meanwhile, jobs are growing nicely and the labor force is expanding.
And the U.S. stock market looks like it will show an increase today, representing the first increase for 2016.
U.S. creates 292,000 jobs in December; unemployment 5% has this breaking good news as we finish an awful week:
"The U.S. created 292,000 new jobs in December, as hiring sped up toward the end of the year. Economists . . . had expected a gain of 215,000 nonfarm jobs.
The unemployment rate remained at 5%, largely because almost a half-million people joined the labor force. Employment gains for November and October, meanwhile, were revised up by a combined 50,000, the Labor Department said Friday.
The government said 252,000 new jobs were created in November instead of 211,000. October's gain was raised to 307,000 from 298,000, marking the biggest increase of 2015.
In a surprise, average hourly wages paid to American workers fell a penny to $25.24. Still, hourly pay has risen 2.5% in the past 12 months, matching a six-and-a-half-year high.
The amount of time people worked each week was unchanged at 34.5 hours. The labor-force participation rate rose a tick to 62.6%."
Summing Up
The U.S. economy continues to show improvement, albeit slowly.
Energy prices have fallen dramatically and will stay low, the U.S. dollar will stay strong, and employment will grow as consumers will have more money to save or spend on better values in the marketplace.
All in all, that's good news.
Thanks. Bob.
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