"The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 50,000 in December 2025, missing the 73,000 Dow Jones estimate and slowing from November's revised gain of 56,000. November payrolls were revised down by 8,000 jobs, while October's loss deepened to 173,000 from 105,000. For 2025 as a whole, payrolls grew by an average of 49,000 jobs per month, down sharply from 168,000 in 2024."
"Bank of America Global Research analysts wrote in a report on Friday that although payroll growth has slowed since June, the unemployment rate has risen by only about 11 basis points. The report noted, "We have been highlighting that tighter immigration restrictions are likely to play a bigger role in the slowdown in job growth this year." The unemployment rate is a key statistic for the Fed, and markets responded to Friday's miss by pricing out a January rate cut, according to the analysts."
""We're seeing a clear decoupling between growth and hiring," Daco said. Output is still expanding, but companies are generating that growth with fewer incremental workers and fewer hours. "Productivity has rebounded meaningfully as businesses continue to streamline operations, automate processes, and extract more output from existing teams in a high-cost, high-interest-rate environment," Daco explained. "This isn't AI-led in a narrow sense yet-it's the payoff from multi-year efficiency drives, tighter cost discipline, and delayed hiring.""
Nonfarm payrolls rose 50,000 in December 2025, below expectations and reflecting downward revisions to prior months; 2025 averaged 49,000 jobs per month versus 168,000 in 2024. The unemployment rate increased only modestly, about 11 basis points, even as hiring softened. Tighter immigration restrictions likely contributed to slower job growth. Markets reacted by pricing out a January Fed rate cut, leaving futures that imply less than half a cut through April. Output continues to expand while firms extract more output from existing teams via streamlining, automation, and multi-year efficiency drives rather than a narrow AI surge.
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