What To Expect From Friday’s Jobs Report [Video]

The U.S. economy likely closed out 2024 by adding jobs steadily, continuing the trend of recent months.

A report on the labor market due from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday will likely show that the U.S. economy added 153,000 jobs in December, according to the consensus forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg Finance, as reported by Wells Fargo Economics. That would be fewer than the 227,000 jobs added in December and a little above the 143,000 jobs added on average for each of the past six months. The forecasters expect the unemployment rate to hold steady at 4.2%, which is relatively low by historical standards.

That pace of job creation is a slowdown from earlier in the post-pandemic era when workers were in much higher demand and the economy rebounded from the COVID-19 recession. High borrowing costs for loans—a result of the Federal Reserve’s campaign of interest rate …