By Matthew Boesler. Media: Bloomberg
A monthly US jobs report due Friday will probably show many industries refrained from hiring as employment gains increasingly concentrated in a handful of sectors, according to Bloomberg Economics.
The report will probably show employers added 140,000 workers to payrolls in December, with job gains concentrated mostly in the government, health care and leisure and hospitality sectors, Bloomberg economists led by Anna Wong wrote Thursday in a preview of the release.

“Employment in most industries likely remained roughly flat, and could have contracted in a few,” Wong and her team said. “We estimate negative job growth in retail trade, manufacturing, finance, professional and business services.”
Read More: US PREVIEW: Jobs Report To Show More Diffused Weakening
Recent data have indicated a continued gradual cooling in the labor market, but without the uptick in layoffs typically associated with sharp downturns.
A Bureau of Labor Statistics report published Wednesday showed job openings fell in November to the lowest level since early 2021, and the share of Americans quitting their jobs also receded, to the smallest since September 2020.
Meanwhile, weekly Labor Department figures on applications for unemployment insurance published Thursday showed initial claims fell in the final week of 2023 to the lowest level since October.
Wong and her team expect Friday’s report to show the unemployment rate climbed to 3.9% in December, with average hourly earnings up just 0.2% from the month before. Their projections are generally more pessimistic than the median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of outside forecasters.
The Federal Reserve’s recent pivot away from additional interest-rate increases and toward likely easing in 2024 “could help limit the recessionary dynamics in the labor market — but our base case remains for a persistent increase in the jobless rate this year,” the Bloomberg economists said.
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