December jobs report expected to show hiring slowdown, declining wage gains [View all]

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December jobs report expected to show hiring slowdown, declining wage gains

Josh Schafer
Thu, January 4, 2024, 3:25 PM EST • 3 min read

The December jobs report is set for release Friday morning and is expected to show more signs of a cooling labor market to finish 2023.

The monthly labor report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET, is expected to show nonfarm payrolls rose by 175,000 in December while the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8% from the previous month, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In November, the US economy added 199,000 jobs while unemployment unexpectedly fell to 3.7%.

Here are the key numbers Wall Street will be looking at, according to data from Bloomberg:

• Nonfarm payrolls: +175,000 vs. +199,000 previously

• Unemployment rate: 3.8% vs. 3.7% previously

• Average hourly earnings, month-on-month: +0.3% vs. +0.4% previously

• Average hourly earnings, year-on-year: +3.9% vs. +4.0% previously

• Average weekly hours worked: 34.4 vs. 34.4 previously

The report will serve as a test for whether the market can shake off a dismal start to the new year after a rally to end 2023. Investor belief that the Federal Reserve can achieve a so-called soft landing, where inflation retreats to the Fed's 2% goal without a recession, drove stocks close to all-time highs last month.

"We expect the December employment report to show slower job growth and a further moderation in nominal wage growth, both something the Federal Reserve wants to see as it attempts to engineer a soft-landing," Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in note on Thursday.

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