(Washington) The last month of 2022 was, for employment in the United States, in tune with this year, stubbornly strong despite the economic slowdown deliberately caused by the American central bank, the Fed, in order to slow the strong inflation.
The unemployment rate even fell in December, falling to 3.5%, a lowest in more than 50 years, and its level of February 2020, just before the pandemic, which it had already found several times this year, the Labor Department announced Friday.
It was 3.6% in November, according to downwardly revised data also released on Friday, and analysts saw it remaining stable.
US President Joe Biden saw in these figures “great news for our economy and new proof that (his) economic program is working”, at a time when the Republican opposition is sinking into chaos by failing to to elect the new Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“In December, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in 50 years” and is “near its lowest level for African Americans and Hispanics, and (that) of people with disabilities never been this low in the history of our country, ”welcomed the Democrat in a press release.
“Still healthy labor market”
The country’s businesses and administrations created 223,000 jobs last month, less than the 256,000 in November – revised downwards – but much better than the 210,000 that were expected.
“Notable job creations have taken place in leisure and hospitality, health services, construction, and social services,” the Department of Labor said in its statement.
The rate of participation of Americans in the labor market increased a little further, to 62.3% (+0.1 point compared to November).
“The December jobs report painted a picture of a still healthy labor market with some easing in wage pressures,” commented Nancy Vanden Houten, economist for Oxford Economics.
Indeed, growth in the average hourly wage was the weakest since August 2021: +4.6% compared to December 2021, compared to +4.8% in November, after peaking at 5.6% in March. And the increase compared to the previous month is 0.3%, against 0.4% in November.
This slowdown in the rise in wages, which have soared for two years due to a shortage of labor in the country, is a sine qua non condition for seeing inflation return to the nails for a long time.
The US central bank (Fed), at the forefront of the fight against inflation, is closely watching the employment situation to assess the health of the country’s economy.
However, for the past two years, there have not been enough workers in the United States.
The Fed has been raising its key interest rates since March, to increase the cost of credit for households and businesses, in order to slow down consumption, and ultimately ease the pressure on prices. At the risk of weighing heavily on employment.
Difficulties in tech
But so far the labor market has been very resilient.
Some sectors, however, are showing difficulties.
In particular tech, which, driven by enthusiasm for online activities during the pandemic, had recruited with a vengeance, and now sees the tide turn.
The latest, the e-commerce giant Amazon, announced on Wednesday that it would cut “just over 18,000” jobs, including in Europe.
The IT group Salesforce, specializing in management solutions and in the cloud (remote computing), announced the same day that it would be laying off around 10% of its employees, or nearly 8,000 jobs.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, will cut 11,000 jobs, and Snapchat has laid off more than 1,200 employees. And Twitter, bought in October by Elon Musk, fired about half of its 7,500 employees.
“The technology sector represents a very small part of the entire labor market, less than 10%”, however qualified Thursday during a conference call Nela Richardson, chief economist of ADP, company which publishes a survey monthly report on private job creation.
“It remains to be seen whether or not the slowdown in tech hiring is affecting the labor market as a whole. But at the moment, it’s such a small proportion that it doesn’t show much, ”she said.