The employment
report issued by Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) and Moody's Analytics on
Wednesday revealed that U.S. private employers added 122,000 jobs in December 2024. This marked the lowest
number since August 2024 (+103,000).
Economists had anticipated
an addition of 140,000 new jobs for December.
Meanwhile, the November
2024 figure was left unrevised at 146,000.
the December job
gain was led by higher hiring in education and health services (+57,000), construction
(+27,000), and leisure and hospitality (+22,000). At
the same time, manufacturing (-11,000), natural resources and mining (-6,000), and
professional and business services (-5,000), shed the jobs last month.
The report also
revealed that annual pay increases slowed in December. The pay gains for
job-stayers decreased from 4.8 per cent y-o-y in November to 4.6 per cent y-o-y last month, the lowest since July 2021, while those for job-changers slipped from
7.2 per cent y-o-y in November to 7.1 per cent y-o-y.
Commenting on
the latest report, Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, noted that the U.S.
labour market downshifted to a more modest pace of growth in the final month of
2024, with a slowdown in both hiring and pay gains. “Health care stood out in
the second half of the year, creating more jobs than any other sector,” she
added.