Employers added workers in December at about the same pace as the previous month, and the unemployment rate matched a four-year low, showing sustained gains in the U.S. labor market even as lawmakers were struggling to reach a budget deal.
Payrolls rose by 155,000 workers last month after a revised 161,000 advance in November that was more than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed Friday in Washington.
The median estimate of 82 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a increase of 152,000.
The unemployment rate held at 7.8 percent, matching the lowest since December 2008.
Improved hiring, hours worked and wages is helping underpin spending at retailers from Macy’s Inc. to Gap Inc., where December sales beat analysts’ estimates. Even bigger advances in employment may depend on lawmakers reaching an agreement on a deficit-reduction plan after Congress this week averted income-tax increases on about 99 percent of households.
“The labor market continues to recover,” Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, said before the report. “The pace of hiring is respectable, and the unemployment rate will gradually keep coming down. With the fiscal cliff having been averted, this should be good for job growth. The labor market will continue to make progress this year.”
Bloomberg survey estimates ranged from increases of 80,000 to 305,000. Revisions to prior reports added a total of 14,000 jobs to payrolls in the previous two months.
The economy created 1.84 million jobs for a second straight year.
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