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Pedestrians move along Lexington Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City on December 16, 2025.
People work in a restaurant in Manhattan on December 16, 2025 in New York City.
People work in a restaurant in Manhattan on December 16, 2025, in New York City.<\/p>\n
Milken Institute chief economist William Lee breaks down job-finding expectations ahead of the release of the final US jobs report of 2025. \u200bTHE-CNN-WIRE (TM) & \u00a9 2025 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC., A TIME WARNER COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Milken Institute chief economist William Lee breaks down job-finding expectations ahead of the release of the final US jobs report of 2025.
Pedestrians move along Lexington Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City on December 16, 2025.
People work in a restaurant in Manhattan on December 16, 2025 in New York City.
People work in a restaurant in Manhattan on December 16, 2025, in New York City.
(CNN) \u2014<\/strong> Hiring slowed more than expected<\/a> in December, a sluggish end to what was one of the weakest years of job growth in decades, a dynamic that further amplified America\u2019s affordability crisis.
The US economy added an estimated 50,000 jobs<\/a> last month, slowing from a downwardly revised 56,000 jobs added in November, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.
Still, the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.4% from a revised 4.5% in November.
Economists were expecting a net gain of 55,000 jobs in December and an unemployment rate of 4.5%, according to FactSet consensus estimates.
With December\u2019s estimated job gains, which are subject to revision, the US economy added just 584,000 jobs last year. Outside of recession years, that\u2019s the weakest annual job growth seen since 2003, BLS data shows.
And those meager gains were driven almost entirely by a couple of industries.
\u201cThe United States is in a jobless boom,\u201d Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said in an interview with CNN. \u201cThere was almost no hiring in 2025 \u2026 we would be talking about job losses in 2025, if it weren\u2019t for health care and social assistance.\u201d
The labor market was already slowing, heading into 2025, as it continued to normalize following the seismic economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the gradual cooling turned sharply into a freeze by the spring. About 85% of the year\u2019s job gains occurred in the first four months of the year, noted Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.
In April, President Donald Trump made his \u201cLiberation Day\u201d announcement of a massive suite of broad and steep tariffs on many of the goods imported into the country.
That and other dramatic policy shifts sent uncertainty surging higher and tossed an ice bath on sentiment in the process.
Tariffs, and the uncertainty surrounding them, were one of three big factors that contributed to the \u201chiring recession\u201d that engulfed pretty much all industries last year, Long said in an interview with CNN.
In addition to tariffs, jobs continued to be scaled back in industries that over-hired during the pandemic. Additionally, the rise of artificial intelligence played a role as well, she said.
\u201cWhat happened with AI is firms needed to use their cash to invest in AI, and so they pulled back on hiring in order to free up that cash,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t so much like, \u2018I\u2019m going to use the robot to replace the human.\u2019 It was, \u2018I need the dollars to go to tech investment instead of human investment.\u2019\u201d
The lone exceptions have been health care \u2013 an industry growing as a result of an aging population \u2013 and leisure and hospitality, which has reaped some of the spoils from an increasingly bifurcated economy, where well-heeled Americans see continued wealth gains while a larger share of middle- and lower-income households are experiencing increased strain.
That was again indeed the case in December.
Leisure and hospitality businesses saw net job gains of 47,000, while health care and social assistance added 38,500 jobs, BLS data showed. Jobs were shed across goods-producing businesses, particularly those in manufacturing, as well as retail trade (where seasonal hiring wasn\u2019t as flush as in years past).
This story is developing and will be updated.<\/em>
The-CNN-Wire
™ & \u00a9 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
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