A recent Wall Street Journal headline offers a succinct summary of the newest employment data: “Job Growth Slows in December; Wages Post Best Gain Since 2009.” Yes, as expected given the spike in global economic uncertainty and the correlation between that and decisions to hire, employment growth slowed in December 2016 and the unemployment rate nudged up just slightly. With economic policy uncertainty continuing to trek skyward, we should expect to see even slower employment growth for a few months, at least until the new Trump team provides more answers than questions about policy actions.
But the relatively weak December job growth was not the major story. The prize for that went to the 2.9 percent year-over-year increase in wages, which trumped December 2015’s 2.6 percent growth rate.
