Welcome to 2025! The first jobs report of the new year comes to us a little later than normal, due to the placement of the winter holidays. Between all of the breaks, the upcoming inauguration, the threat of potential port strikes at the East Coast ports, and several winter storms, the markets did seem to struggle with finding some sense of normalcy. However, with everyone now back at work, December’s job report came out with a true bang.
With a whopping additional 256,000 jobs added in December, this morning, the Dow opened a little lower, as experts grapple with the stronger than expected numbers. The S&P and Nasdaq made small, downward movements as well. These are expected to stabilize as the day wears on and the numbers are fully examined. Unemployment dipped to 4.1% from 4.2%, with experts saying this brings the U.S. unemployment numbers back to pre-pandemic levels. The Federal Reserve’s statement to November’s report was to lower the interest rates once more at the end of 2024. The new year will, hopefully, see the effects of those interest rate decreases. There were a few changes to the November report, with more on that below. The number of jobs in the Transportation and Warehouse industries stayed roughly the same for December. As usual, we’ll have more on that sector further down!
November's Job Opening and Turnover Survey
In November, the Job Opening and Turnover Survey says that it showed few changes in the number of openings, but the number of jobs was revised upward minimally to 8.1 million. However, after all of the changes were brought in and sifted through last month, job openings drastically increased for the Professional and Business Services industry by another 273,000. This is in addition to the 209,000 added in October. Finance and insurance jobs also saw an increase by 105,000, while the Private Educational field saw a 38,000 job gain. There was a small decrease in the number of Information jobs of -89,000, which is a surprise considering their increases after revisions in October. The quit rate for November did go down to 3.1 million, while layoffs increased to 1.8 million.
December's Jobs Report
For the month of December, Non-farm payrolls grew by the surprising amount of 256,000 jobs, completely obliterating the numbers from November. These much higher numbers come in with mixed feelings. While many economic experts are glad to see further recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the markets are continuing to show fears of inflation, something the U.S. has had difficulty shaking in recent years. December’s report shows unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.1%. The labor force participation rate for December stayed the same at 62.5%.
Last month, December 2024, the Healthcare industry, which has been steadily adding small numbers of jobs every month for the past year, added another 46,000 jobs. In Government, new jobs came in with yet another gain of 33,000, the same as November. There weren’t any sizeable decreases in any of the industries listed in the report. Even the Retail sector added 43,000 jobs in December, wiping out their losses of 29,000 from November. The Transportation and Warehousing industries, again, have not been making great increases or decreases for several months now. For more on the outlook for the trucking and transportation industry, see our blog from last month (December 11, 2024) where I covered what to look out for in 2025!
Conclusion
The December Jobs Report and the November Job Opening and Turnover Survey came out today with numbers that surprised economic experts. After adding an explosive number of jobs in December, it will be interesting to see how that affects the economic predictions for 2025. Even the Federal Reserve, who just lowered rates last month for the third time in a row, seems ready to continue its trend. Stay tuned to the LZ Blog and our Lionzone social media to follow the job market!
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Meaghan Goldberg covers recruitment and digital marketing for Lionzone. A Patterson, GA native, after graduating from both Valdosta State University and Middle Tennessee State University, Meaghan joined Lionzone in 2018 as a digital recruitment strategist before becoming the social media manager.
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