"The labor market should strengthen in the months ahead"
- Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc.
The pace of hiring in the world's largest economy eased slightly last month, while unemployment rate held steady at previous month's level, the Labor Department figures showed on Friday. Payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 in December, around yearly average of 153,000 net new positions per month, and the overall jobless rate held at 7.8% after the November figure was revised up from a previously reported 7.7%. At the same time, the total number of people out of work was largely unchanged at 12.2 million. Gains in employment and overall improvement of the labour market should reinforce expectations that the U.S. economy will expand about 2% this year.
"The labor market should strengthen in the months ahead," said Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit, and the best payrolls forecaster over the past two years according to data compiled by Bloomberg. "As long as Washington is able to resolve many of the issues that remain on the table, the economy should get much stronger."
"The underlying economy is not yet strong enough to support aggressive estimates by economists on job growth," said Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions in New York.
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