A Reality Check on the Latest Government Jobs Report

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• Employment Report

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Welcome to cornering the job market for Friday, January 9th. Today’s biggest, well, only real headline that matters is the latest jobs data. The December 2025 jobs report was released this morning, and it’s not great, to say the least. 50,000 jobs were added last month, which is positive, but it fell short of the 70,000 that economists were projecting. Now, there’s always skepticism around government data for obvious reasons, but I will say the 50,000 is in line with what private companies have reported over the past few days. ADP’s report showed 41,000 jobs were added, and Revelio Labs reported a gain of 71,000. So when you look at these numbers, in reality, given the enormity of the U.S. labor market at around 170 million, the differences are relatively insignificant. So that’s my way of saying I believe these numbers are accurate for the most part. We’ll see if they’re revised later. Unemployment was down slightly in December from 4.5 to 4.4. But even though that’s heading in the right direction, the number of people unemployed 27 weeks or longer actually increased. Long-term unemployment rose by 38,000 in December. Involuntary part-time work fell, but it remains elevated.

1:15

There were 146,000 fewer people working part-time for economic reasons in December than the month before, but it’s still far above December 24 levels where there were only 4.4 million total versus 5.3 million now. So we have a long way to go to close that gap. Now let’s consider the yearly numbers. Total job growth last year was 584,000. And that may sound good to you, but it’s not at all when you compare it to the 2 million jobs that were added in 2024. On a monthly basis, that’s 49,000 versus 168,000. That is a massive difference. And unfortunately, it doesn’t really get better from here. Long-term unemployment increased by 397,000 year over year, and involuntary part-time work increased by 980,000. Huge numbers. Not good at all. There’s just no way to spend this as positive. But the last thing I’ll share is somewhat good news. Average hourly earnings were up 12 cents in December, and that’s that means they’re up 3.8% year over year, which is outpacing inflation at 2.7%. So that is the closest thing to good we see in these numbers, but not nearly where we need it to be.

2:33

So we have a long way to go. I’m feeling optimistic about 2026, not because of this data, but because my staffing company is busy, my peers in the industry around the country are busy. I’m hearing lots of good signs as it relates to hiring, and that’s the only way we’re going to get out of this is if we’re seeing more people going to work, more employers having job openings, and at least for the time being, I’m knocking on my desk. I’m seeing that start to develop. So stay tuned for more on that. Time will tell. And those are your headlines for today. That is your headline for today. But here’s a fun fact before we close Casual Friday started in Hawaii in the 1960s as Aloha Friday to support the local garment industry. I like that. Casual Fridays. Well, I’m pretty casual today, and it is Friday, so there we go. Thank you for listening. Have a great weekend. Please like, subscribe, share with anyone who you believe might be interested, and I will keep sharing the headlines and look forward to talking to you next week.