Employers Continue to Add Jobs
The Labor Department reported on Friday that American employers added 155,000 jobs in December, continuing the slow pace of growth over the past year.
The biggest gains were in health care, food services, construction and manufacturing, with the latter two probably helped by the rebuilding in the Northeast after Hurricane Sandy. Government payrolls fell modestly once again.
The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, the same as the revised rate for November.
Over the course of 2012, the country added 1.8 million jobs, despite continued job losses in the government sector and anxiety related to the presidential election and scheduled tax increases and spending cuts. Also encouraging is a report by Outplacement Firm Challenger, Gray and Thomas that said the number of job cuts fell 43% from those in November.
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