Source: Economics Group of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.Summary
The final employment report for 2025 was a relatively quiet affair. Nonfarm payroll growth registered 50K in December, a bit weaker than the consensus forecast, while revisions to job growth in the prior two months were a combined -76K. The weak payroll data were offset by an improvement in the unemployment rate, which fell one tenth from a downwardly revised reading of 4.5% in November to 4.4% in December. Some, though not all, of this improvement we think can be traced back to a normalization in the data after the government shutdown inserted additional noise into the November household survey.