• In December, payrolls rose 223K, which was down from last month’s downward revised 256K and also the lowest since the negative December 2020 print, but was above the consensus estimate of 202K.
• But the big outlier in today’s report was not in jobs but in wages, as the average hourly earnings rose just 0.3% M/M in December, down from 0.6% previously (revised to 0.4%) and below the 0.4% expected. On an annual basis, hourly earnings rose just 4.6%, down from last month’s 5.1%, which was also revised sharply lower to 4.8%. This was the slowest wage growth since August 21.

Tagged: #Bidenflation