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Americans were getting jobs and raises in December, and it’s good news all around for the economy.
The economy added 223,000 jobs in December, above the 200,000 payrolls economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimated, according to the latest report on employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate came down, standing at a historically low 3.5%. At the same time, wages went up, but at a more moderate clip.
“Today’s job report showed that we can still have a robust pace of hiring, even as wages begin to stabilize back toward a more sustainable level,” Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Insider on Friday.
All of that is good news for workers, and for the economy as a whole. The data is exactly what the Federal Reserve has been asking for — and means the central bank may not trigger a recession. The Fed has been trying to cool wage growth in an attempt to curb inflation, and it’s hiked interest rates seven times in 2022 to do just that. Friday’s data might show that the labor market has executed that successfully.
Nick Bunker, economic research director at job site Indeed, told Insider that he’s not sure how much Friday’s report will affect the Fed’s view, but it could indicate good news.
“If what we’re seeing in the average hourly earnings data is representative, or an indicator of what we might see for some other wage growth metrics or measures of wages moving forward,” Bunker said, “then that will be very much welcome news” to the Fed.
Bunker added that the Fed is “just waiting on wage growth to come down, and I think that will make them feel more comfortable about the labor market and its potential impact on inflation.”
Average hourly earnings increased 4.
