Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the December jobs report released this morning.

From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):

Read the full Twitter thread here.

December’s jobs report is somewhat a repeat of last month: the payroll survey is notably weaker than the household survey. That said the longer-term picture is fairly consistent. Over the year, payroll growth averaged 537,000 jobs per month, faster than the last three recoveries. pic.twitter.com/wpFd6Zzzkm

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) January 7, 2022

The increase in Black unemployment appears to be borne by Black women, who experienced a huge jump in their unemployment rate from 4.9% to 6.2% in December, due in part to lower employment levels as well as an increase in labor force participation. pic.twitter.com/VfuJWFkgUy

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) January 7, 2022

Employment continued to trend up in leisure and hospitality, increasing 53,000 in December. Leisure and hospitality added a total of 2.6 million jobs in 2021, but remains the sector with the largest shortfall compared to pre-pandemic employment levels. pic.twitter.com/jBLBDKXqqP

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) January 7, 2022

From EPI president, Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz):

Read the full Twitter thread here. 

How to interpret things when this happens? The rule of thumb is to put more weight on the payroll survey, since it’s much bigger. But the outrageously strong household survey means we don’t have to get too worked up about the payroll survey coming in below expectations. 2/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) January 7, 2022

This is due in huge part to ARPA. Unlike after the Great Recession, here Congress enacted the fiscal policy needed to generate a strong recovery. We are on track to recover many times faster than we recovered from the Great Recession. 4/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) January 7, 2022

And there is an absolutely devastating gap in state and local govt jobs: down 10,000 in Dec and 944,000 since Feb ‘20—with the majority of that, 567,000, in education. It’s critical that S&L govts use their ARPA funds to refill those jobs. 6/ https://t.co/IzEVMtjVXE

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) January 7, 2022