Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press 

under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that 

the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. 

Statement of 

William J. Wiatrowski 

Acting Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Friday, January 4, 2019

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 312,000 in 

December, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent. Health 

care, food services and drinking places, construction, 

manufacturing, and retail trade added jobs over the month. Job 

growth totaled 2.6 million in 2018, compared with a gain of 2.2 

million jobs in 2017. 

Incorporating revisions for October and November, which 

increased payrolls by 58,000, monthly job gains averaged 254,000 

over the past 3 months. 

In December, health care added 50,000 jobs. Within the 

industry, employment rose in ambulatory care services (+38,000) 

and hospitals (+7,000). Health care added 346,000 jobs in 2018, 

more than the gain of 284,000 jobs in 2017. 
2 

Employment in food services and drinking places rose by 

41,000 in December. Over the year, the industry added 235,000 

jobs, in line with the increase of 261,000 jobs in 2017. 

Construction added 38,000 jobs in December, following no 

change in November. Within the industry, job gains occurred in 

heavy and civil engineering (+16,000) and nonresidential 

specialty trade contractors (+16,000) in December. Employment in 

construction increased by 280,000 in 2018, compared with an 

increase of 250,000 in 2017. 

Manufacturing added 32,000 jobs in December. Most of this 

increase occurred in the durable goods component (+19,000), with 

job gains in fabricated metal products (+7,000) and computer and 

electronic products (+4,000). Nondurable goods manufacturing 

added 13,000 jobs over the month. In 2018, manufacturing 

employment increased by 284,000, with about three-fourths of the 

gain in durable goods industries. Manufacturing had added 

207,000 jobs in 2017. 

Employment in retail trade increased by 24,000 in December. 

Job gains occurred in general merchandise stores (+15,000) and 

automobile dealers (+6,000). Employment in sporting goods, 

hobby, book, and music stores declined by 9,000 over the month. 

Retail trade employment rose by 92,000 in 2018, after little net 

change in 2017 (-29,000). 
3 

Employment continued to trend up in professional and 

business services in December (+43,000). In 2018, this industry 

added 583,000 jobs, outpacing the gain of 458,000 jobs in 2017. 

Employment in other major industries--including mining, 

wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information, 

financial activities, and government--showed little change over 

the month. 

 Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm 

payrolls rose by 11 cents in December to $27.48. Over the past 

12 months, average hourly earnings have grown by 3.2 percent. 

From November 2017 to November 2018, the Consumer Price Index 

for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased by 2.2 percent (on a 

seasonally adjusted basis). 

Turning to measures from the household survey, the 

unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent in December, and the 

number of unemployed people increased to 6.3 million. A year 

earlier, the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, and the 

unemployment level was 6.6 million. 

Among the unemployed, the number who had been searching for 

work for 27 weeks or longer, at 1.3 million, was essentially 

unchanged over the month but was down by 205,000 over the year. 

In December, these long-term unemployed accounted for 20.5 

percent of the total unemployed. 
4 

The labor force participation rate, at 63.1 percent, 

changed little in December. The employment-population ratio was 

60.6 percent for the third month in a row. Over the year, both 

the labor force participation rate and the employment-population 

ratio were up by 0.4 percentage point. 

In December, 4.7 million people were working part time for 

economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time 

workers), little changed from the previous month but down by 

329,000 over the year. 

Among those neither working nor looking for work in 

December, 1.6 million were considered marginally attached to the 

labor force, little changed from a year earlier. Discouraged 

workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed no 

jobs were available for them, numbered 375,000 in December, down 

by 99,000 from a year earlier. (People who are marginally 

attached to the labor force had not looked for work in the 4 

weeks prior to the survey but wanted a job, were available to 

work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 months.) 

Following our regular annual practice, seasonal adjustment 

factors for the household survey data have been updated with the 

release of December data. Seasonally adjusted estimates going 

back 5 years--to January 2014--were subject to revision. 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 312,000 

in December, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent.