U.S. payrolls rose 50,000 in December, less than expected; unemployment rate falls to 4.4%

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. Both payroll employment (+50,000) and unemployment rate (4.4%) change little in December

Both payroll employment (+50,000) and unemployment rate (4.4%) change little in December
Both total nonfarm payroll employment (+50,000) and the unemployment rate (4.4 percent) changed little in December. Employment continued to trend up in food services and drinking places, health care, and social assistance. Retail trade lost jobs.

Economic News Release USDL-26-0020
Employment Situation Summary
Transmission of material in this news release is embargoed until 8:30 a.m. (ET) Friday, January 9, 2026

Technical information:
Household data: [phone] * [e-mail] * www.bls.gov/cps
Establishment data: [phone] * [e-mail] * www.bls.gov/ces

Media contact: [phone] * [e-mail]


THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- DECEMBER 2025


Both total nonfarm payroll employment (+50,000) and the unemployment rate (4.4 percent) changed little in December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in food services and drinking places, health care, and social assistance. Retail trade lost jobs.

This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
|
| Revision of Seasonally Adjusted Household Survey Data
|
| Seasonally adjusted household survey data have been revised using updated seasonal
| adjustment factors, a procedure done at the end of each calendar year. Seasonally adjusted
| estimates back to January 2021 were subject to revision. The unemployment rates for January
| 2025 through November 2025 (as originally published and as revised), along with additional
| information about the revisions, appear in table A at the end of this news release.
|_____________________________________________________________________________________________


Household Survey Data

Both the unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, and the number of unemployed people, at 7.5 million, changed little in December. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.9 percent), adult women (3.9 percent), teenagers (15.7 percent), Whites (3.8 percent), Blacks (7.5 percent), Asians (3.6 percent), and Hispanics (4.9 percent) showed little or no change over the month. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The number of people jobless less than 5 weeks edged down to 2.3 million in December. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) changed little over the month at 1.9 million but is up by 397,000 over the year. The long-term unemployed accounted for 26.0 percent of all unemployed people in December. (See table A-12.)

Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.4 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.7 percent, changed little in December. These measures have shown little change over the year. (See table A-1.)

The number of people employed part time for economic reasons, at 5.3 million, changed little in December but is up by 980,000 over the year. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)

The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job was little changed at 6.2 million in December but is up by 684,000 over the year. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job. (See table A-1.)

Among those not in the labor force who wanted a job, the number of people marginally attached to the labor force changed little at 1.8 million in December. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but had not looked for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, decreased by 183,000 in December to 461,000. (See Summary table A.)

Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in December (+50,000). Employment continued to trend up in food services and drinking places, health care, and social assistance. Retail trade lost jobs. Payroll employment rose by 584,000 in 2025 (an average monthly gain of 49,000), less than the increase of 2.0 million in 2024 (an average monthly gain of 168,000).(See table B-1.)

Employment in food services and drinking places continued to trend up in December (+27,000).Food services and drinking places added an average of 12,000 jobs per month in 2025, similar to the average increase of 11,000 jobs per month in 2024.

Health care employment continued its upward trend in December (+21,000), with a gain of 16,000 jobs in hospitals. Health care employment rose by an average of 34,000 per month in 2025, less than the average monthly gain of 56,000 in 2024.

In December, employment in social assistance continued to trend up (+17,000), mostly in individual and family services (+13,000).

Retail trade lost 25,000 jobs in December. Over the month, employment declined in warehouse
clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers (-19,000) and in food and beverage retailers (-9,000). Electronics and appliance retailers added 5,000 jobs. Retail trade employment showed little net change in both 2024 and 2025.

Federal government employment was little changed in December (+2,000). Since reaching a peak in January, federal government employment is down by 277,000, or 9.2 percent. (Employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are counted as employed in the establishment survey.)

Employment showed little or no change over the month in other major industries, including.mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; construction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; transportation and warehousing; information; financial activities; professional and business services; and other services.

In December, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 12 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $37.02. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.8 percent. In December, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees, at $31.76, changed little (+3 cents). (See tables B-3 and B-8.)

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged down by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours in December. In manufacturing, the average workweek edged down by 0.2 hour to 39.9 hours, and overtime was unchanged at 2.9 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls remained at 33.7 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for October was revised down by 68,000, from -105,000 to -173,000, and the change for November was revised down by 8,000, from +64,000 to +56,000. With these revisions, employment in October and November combined is 76,000 lower than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.)

_____________
The Employment Situation for January is scheduled to be released on Friday, February 6, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. (ET).


_____________________________________________________________________________________________
| |
| Household Survey Estimates and the Federal Government Shutdown
| |
| The federal government shutdown did not impact the collection of household survey data for
| December 2025. The household survey returned to the usual composite weighting methodology
| in December. The impact of the November weighting change on the standard error for the
| December unemployment rate was negligible.
|
| Household survey data for the fourth quarter of 2025 were not produced. Due to the federal
| government shutdown, household survey data were not collected for October 2025. Reliable
| estimates for the fourth quarter of 2025 could not be produced without one-third of the
| data used for a quarterly estimate.
|
| Annual estimates of 2025 household survey data were produced using 11-month averages that
| exclude October. As a result, 2025 annual estimates are not strictly comparable with
| annual averages for other years.
|
| Additional information about the impact of the shutdown on the household survey is
| available online at
| www.bls.gov/cps/methods/2025-federal-government-shutdown-impact-cps.htm.
|_____________________________________________________________________________________________


_____________________________________________________________________________________________
|
| Upcoming Changes to Establishment Survey Data
|
| Effective with the release of The Employment Situation for January 2026 on February 6,
| 2026, nonfarm payroll employment, hours, and earnings data from the establishment survey
| will be revised to reflect the annual benchmark process and updated seasonal adjustment
| factors. Not seasonally adjusted data beginning with April 2024 and seasonally adjusted
| data beginning with January 2021 are subject to revision. Consistent with standard
| practice, additional historical data may be revised as a result of the benchmark process.
| |
| Also effective with the release of January 2026 data, the establishment survey will change
| the birth-death model by incorporating current sample information each month. The change
| follows the same methodology applied to the April through October 2024 forecasts during
| the 2024 post-benchmark period (see question 9 in the CES Birth-Death Model Frequently
| Asked Questions page at www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbdqa.htm).
|_____________________________________________________________________________________________


_____________________________________________________________________________________________
| |
| Population Control Adjustments to the Household Survey |
|
| The annual population control adjustments that are usually incorporated with the release
| of January estimates in February will instead be introduced with the release of February
| 2026 estimates in March. Consequently, the initial January 2026 household survey estimates
| will continue to use short-term projections of monthly population estimates derived from
| population adjustments introduced in January 2025 (based on Vintage 2024 population
| estimates provided by the U.S. Census Bureau). As soon as practicable, BLS plans to revise
| January 2026 estimates to incorporate the updated population controls. Additional
| information will be announced at www.bls.gov/cps/documentation.htm#pop.
|_____________________________________________________________________________________________


Revision of Seasonally Adjusted Household Survey Data

At the end of each calendar year, BLS updates the seasonal adjustment factors for the national
labor force series derived from the household survey. As a result of this process, seasonally
adjusted data for January 2021 through November 2025 were subject to revision. (Not seasonally
adjusted data were not subject to revision.)

Table A shows the unemployment rates for January 2025 through November 2025, excluding October
2025, as first published and as revised. (Household survey data were not collected for October
2025 due to the federal government shutdown.) The unemployment rate changed by one-tenth of a
percentage point in 4 of the 10 months and was unchanged in the remaining 6 months. Revised
seasonally adjusted data for other major labor force series back to December 2024 appear in
table B.

More information on this year's revisions to seasonally adjusted household series is available
at www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps-seas-adjustment-methodology.pdf. Detailed information on the
seasonal adjustment methodology is found at www.bls.gov/cps/seasonal-adjustment-methodology.htm.

Historical data for the household series contained in the A tables (A-1 through A-16) of this
news release can be accessed at www.bls.gov/cps/cpsatabs.htm. Revised historical seasonally
adjusted data are available at www.bls.gov/cps/data.htm and
https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/ln.

{snip all kinds of tables}