Subscribe to Thumbstop, a must-read newsletter for mastering the art and science of shipping more winning ads. 

Past issues include: 

⚡The Barry Hott Ugly Ads Edition which revealed the science of getting past people’s subconscious ad blockers.

⚡ The Sarah Levinger Psychology-Based Creative Edition showing how to properly use emotion and brain science in your advertising.

⚡The Alex Cooper A-to-Z of Ad Production Edition giving teams a relentlessly practical guide to ideation and iteration. 

Plus, we’ve covered things like how HexClad's Head of Growth Connor Rolain runs his creative strategy flywheel, how to properly back into a MER goal, contribution margin tutorials, and advanced ad analysis techniques. 

The U.S. labor market added 216,000 jobs in December. The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that the October payroll gain was revised down by 45,000, from the initial estimate of 150,000 to 105,000. Similarly, November's jobs growth was revised down by 26,000, from 199,000 to 173,000. Markets initially sold off on this news, contributing to one of the worst starts to the year in a decade for global stocks and bonds.

The household survey measure of employment experienced a significant decline in December, with a drop of 700,000. Over the last four months, the employment situation according to the household survey has been incredibly weak, with full-time positions crashing by 1.6 million. This type of behavior is typically only seen during a recession. However, the unemployment rate remained at 3.7% for the second straight month due to those who lost their jobs and were not looking for a replacement simply falling out of the labor force.

The establishment survey suggests that 5.8 million jobs have been created since April 2022, while the household survey indicates a figure of only 3.0 million.

Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7%, due to a significant decline in the labor force participation rate. However, the underemployment rate (the percentage of employed people working part-time but would prefer full-time) rose to 7.1%, up from 6.6% in April 2023. The long-term unemployment rate (those unemployed for at least 27 weeks) also increased to 19.7%, up from 17.5% in February 2023.

Full, Part & Temp Jobs

The BLS also reported that temporary help services, typically seen as a leading indicator for overall payrolls, has been cutting jobs for 11 consecutive months. This is a trend that has never been observed outside of a recession. Another alarming trend is the surge in multiple jobholders, which reached a record high of 8.57 million in December. This suggests that more workers are having to take on more than one job to make ends meet. Furthermore, the number of full-time workers fell significantly, with the only gains seen in part-time employment.

Job Growth By Industry

A significant portion of the job growth came from government jobs - 52,000 to be precise. This raises questions about the sustainability and quality of these jobs. The report also showed that average hourly earnings rose by 0.4% on the month and were up 4.1% from a year ago, both higher than respective estimates. The jobs report also showed a loss of jobs in the transportation and warehousing sector. This is puzzling considering that a healthy economy with high employment would typically see an increase in the transportation of goods across the country.

Participation

Data on participation in the job market showed signs of slight weakening with a decrease to 63.5% in December. The number of out-of-work individuals who weren't actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job currently stood at 1.7 million in December and was up by 514,000 overall in 2023.

Thanks For Reading!

If you want to advertise your business to the 200,000+ readers of this newsletter, learn more here.

To Read Past Newsletters Click here.

Thanks for reading American Economy Daily! Subscribe now to receive new posts and support our work.