U.S ends 2019 with strong figures for private payroll growth with 202,000 new positions in December

As per the data released on Wednesday, the United States of America ended the last year with strong figures for private payroll growth. Hinting at an added stability to the labor market, the report showed U.S companies to have recorded 202,000 new positions in December.

According to ADP and Moody’s Analytics, the data printed significantly higher than the analysts’ forecast of 160,000 positions in December. The official government report is likely to be released later this week on Friday. December’s figure has also posted a significant gain as compared to the revised figure for November that remained capped at a much lower tally of 124,000.

Moody’s Analytics Says Unemployment Can Catch Pace Again In 2020

According to Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist, Mark Zandi, while unemployment remains low in the U.S, sectors including small companies, energy producers, and manufacturers have continued shedding jobs through the last year. In an event that job growth loses pace any further, he added, unemployment can be expected to rise again in 2020.

The report also highlighted that the construction sector added as many as 37,000 new jobs in December that marked the best gain in the past 10 months. The figure also recovered the 5,600 lost jobs reported in November in the construction sector. Goods-producing industries had reported a drop of 17,600 positions in November. As of December, however, the sector printed a massive gain of 29,000 new payrolls.

On the contrary, however, mining and manufacturing fail to pose added positions in December with the former recording a drop of 1,000 while a much larger decline of 7,000 payrolls was reported in manufacturing.

Services Sector Recorded The Most Prominent Gain In New Positions

The most prominent gain was recorded in the services sector with a massive 173,000 new positions in December. Transportation, trade, and utilities contributed to 78,000 of these while business and other relevant professional services amounted to a gain of 61,000. The sub-sectors of education and health came after with 49,000 added positions while financial activities stood at the last place with only 10,000 added payrolls in December.

Leisure and hospitality are known to have registered the largest growth during the economic expansion that lasted for much of the last decade. However, December’s report highlighted a loss of 21,000 positions in this sector while another 14,000 were lost in information services.

The response in the forex market, however, wasn’t too aggressive on Wednesday. EUR/USD was seen dropping from around 1.1130 level to a daily low of 1.1100 following the release of the economic data.