A jump in the workforce and easing wage growth suggests the U.S. job market is starting to move the way the Federal Reserve has hoped it will, to bring the supply and demand for workers into better balance and help in its battle against inflation.
After a year in which many basic metrics of the jobs market stalled at levels the U.S. central bank feels are inconsistent with stable prices,Nearly 165 million people were either in jobs or looking for them last month, a record high that showed a long-hoped-for improvement in labor supply. U.S. firms added 223,000 payroll jobs to cap a year in which 4.5 million people were hired, a total exceeded in the post-World War Two era only by 2021's 6.7 million.
Traders took the report as evidence the Fed's work is near to being done. U.S. stocks rose and interest-rate futures traders added to bets the Fed will slow its rate hike pace further at its Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting and ultimately stop short of the 5.00%-5.25% policy rate range that nearly all U.S. central bankers have signaled they believe will be needed to bring inflation to heel.
The employment data, while only reflecting a single month, nonetheless presented a welcome easing in some of those dynamics that have weighed so heavily on officials' minds in their bid to keep reducing inflation, which was running at the highest rates in 40 years in the middle of last year. More inflation data due next week will play into the Fed's calculus about where to go in the months ahead, with the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index expected to show price pressures had softened further in December. The annual CPI rate is expected to have dropped to a 14-month low of 6.5% in December from 7.
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