The U.S. added 50,000 jobs last month, a mixed report capping off a difficult year for the labor market.

Jobseekers wait in line to enter a career fair in Chicago on Aug. 7.Jim Vondruska / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

The U.S. economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, capping off the worst year for hiring since 2020, when the Covid pandemic brought the global economy to a standstill.

Save for 2020, last year ranks as the poorest year for job creation since 2009 and the global financial crisis.

Just 584,000 jobs were created in 2025, far below the more than 2 million added in each of the prior two years, and the more than 4 million hires in 2022, the height of the post-pandemic recovery.

Last year, the labor market added jobs at an average pace of 48,000 jobs per month, after revisions.

The slowdown in hiring was not a complete surprise, however.

Government employment plummeted in 2025, especially in October, when tens of thousands of federal employees whose jobs had been eliminated under billionaire Elon Musk`s Department of Government Efficiency came to the official end of their government service.

President Donald Trump`s administration has also pursued aggressive immigration restrictions, and as a result many companies have taken a cautious approach to hiring noncitizens

Economists have said that rising immigration in recent years helped to address persistent U.S. labor shortages and bolstered the jobs market as a whole.

For months ahead of this report, the overall labor market has been shrouded in fog and conflicting signals, after the longest U.S. government shutdown in history delayed the release of official data.

Even though most employers - save for a few notable companies - have largely refrained from mass layoffs, people seeking work will find roles harder to come by than they were a year ago.

The slowing nature of the labor market will also likely make it harder for workers to switch jobs voluntarily.

The unemployment rate, which has trended higher for months, fell to 4.4% in December. The decline was due in part to adjustments applied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so the decline is less than it appears on its face.

Job growth during the months of October and November were also revised down significantly Friday.

After initially reporting that the economy lost 105,000 jobs in October, BLS says the total is now a loss of 173,000. November also shrank, with hiring being revised down from an increase of 64,000 to growth of only 56,000.

"This isn`t a December to remember type of jobs report," said Eric Merlis, co-head of global markets at Citizens. "The unemployment rate and broader labor force measures showed little movement in December," he said, indicating that the labor market is stable even if it is currently growing slowly.

Job gains in December were largely driven by food services, health care and social assistance, according to the Labor Department, with losses concentrated in retail trade and manufacturing..

Meanwhile, wage data showed that average hourly earnings clocked in at $37.02 in December, up 3.8% from a year earlier. Wage data is closely watched as a gauge of labor market tightness and a key signal for inflation pressures as the Federal Reserve continues to weigh future interest rate cuts.

In the days leading up to Friday`s release, the direction of the labor market wasn`t entirely clear.

Wall Street had expected a gain of 73,000 jobs last month and a slight drop in the unemployment rate to 4.5%, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

Executive search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday there were half as many layoff announcements in December as there were in November, and were down 8% from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the number of people filing for unemployment benefits came in lower than expected for the week ending Jan. 3, a positive sign as economists watch for further evidence that the labor market is cooling but not cracking.