Economy Adds Just 155,000 Jobs In December
WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) – The economy continued to show growth over the final two months of the 2012 calendar year, but it wasn't enough to bring down the unemployment rate in December.
According to the Labor Department, the economy created 155,000 jobs in the month of December, which was in line with what economists were expecting. However, the gains were not enough to bring down the unemployment rate which increased a tick to 7.8 percent.
The numbers showed that the long-term unemployed made up a smaller percentage of the total unemployed, which was some encouraging news in the otherwise stagnant report.
Economists have said the increase could be a temporary result of the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy and that in the coming months hiring may be negatively impacted by Washington. Hiring is expected to be put on hold until Congress deals with the sequester and debt ceiling by March.
One area that took a blow in the latest numbers was government workers. According to the Labor Department, 13,000 government workers lost their jobs last month. Of those government workers losing their jobs, 11,500 were teachers.
According to the National Journal's Reid Wilson, since President Obama took office, the federal government has added 2,000 jobs, state governments have lost 115,000 jobs, and local governments have lost 501,000 jobs.
