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December jobs report preview: Payrolls expected to accelerate as unemployment rate falls to 4.1%

Emily McCormick · Reporter
Thu, January 6, 2022, 2:24 PM · 4 min read

The U.S. economy likely ended 2021 with a month of solid job growth, as hiring picked up before the latest surge in Omicron-related infections meaningfully impacted the labor market.

The Labor Department is set to release its December jobs report Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here are the main metrics expected from the print, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

• Non-farm payrolls: +444,000 expected vs. +210,000 in November

• Unemployment rate: 4.1% expected vs. 4.2% in November

• Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: 0.4% expected vs. 0.3% in November

• Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: 4.2% expected. vs. 4.8% in November

The labor market likely saw 12 consecutive months of job growth in December. Specifically, consensus economists expect that December payrolls increased by over 400,000, or more than double the tally from November, when a slowdown in service-sector hiring had weighed on overall employment growth.

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Others suggested that notable Omicron-related impacts to the monthly labor market data are unlikely to appear until at least the January report. The Labor Department collects data for the monthly jobs reports during the week including the 12th of the month, which may have been too early to capture disturbances from the Omicron variant discovered in the U.S. in late November.

"Thought Omicron-related disruptions present some downside risk, they are more likely to be evident in the January employment report," Deutsche Bank economists led by Brett Ryan wrote in a note. "For example, the four-week average of initial jobless claims declined by a little over 24% between the November and December employment survey periods ... This was the largest month-over-month decline since August 2020 (-28%), when private payrolls increased by over 1 million."

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