Updated at 8:53 a.m. ET
The U.S. economy added 252,000 jobs in December, capping a 12-month stretch of job growth unmatched since 1999, according to the Labor Department. In a separate survey, the department says that the unemployment rate dipped to 5.6 percent from 5.8 percent the previous month.
The department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that job gains occurred in professional and business services, construction, food and drinking establishments, health care and manufacturing.
The number of jobs created in October and November was also revised upward by 50,000 for the two months combined, according to BLS.
It was widely expected that December would be another strong month for job growth.
NPR's John Ydstie, reporting on Morning Edition ahead of this morning's announcement, says that it's been 15 years since job growth was so strong.
"[You] have to go all the way back to 1999, when companies were rapidly hiring IT workers to deal with the Y2K threat to computer systems. That year the economy added about 3.2 million new jobs," John says.
In a foreshadowing of today's new figures, a report out on Thursday showed fewer Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits.
Labor's Household Survey, which determines the official employment rate, showed 383,000 fewer people were considered unemployed, bringing that number to 8.7 million.
According to BLS: "Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women (5.0 percent) decreased by 0.2 percentage point in December, while the rates for adult men (5.3 percent), teenagers (16.8 percent), whites (4.8 percent), blacks (10.4 percent), and Hispanics (6.5 percent) showed little change. The jobless rate for Asians, at 4.2 percent (not seasonally adjusted), changed little from a year earlier."
The number of so-called "discouraged workers" — those who have given up looking for work — stood at 740,000, down by 177,000 the year before.
Despite the good news, wage growth remains weak, with hourly pay actually slipping by 5 cents, the department says.
As The Associated Press notes:
"American businesses have been largely shrugging off signs of economic weakness overseas and continuing to hire at healthy rates. The U.S. economy's steady improvement is especially striking compared with the weakness in much of the world. "Europe is barely growing, and its unemployment rate is nearly double the U.S. level. Japan, the world's third-largest economy, is in recession. Russia's economy is cratering as oil prices plummet. China is straining to manage a slowdown. Brazil and others in Latin America are struggling."
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