Employment in the nonfarm private sector rose by 164,00 jobs, accelerating from 101,000 in November, according to data from the ADP National Employment Report released Thursday. The labor market is returning to prepandemic trends, said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. Despite the uptick in jobs, annual wage growth continued to slow, easing to 5.4% from 5.6% a month earlier. Pay data is based on the salaries of almost 10 million individual employees over a 12-month period. The ADP estimate is based on aggregated payroll data of more than 25 million U.S. workers and is independent from U.S. Labor Department official data.

Source: Wall Street Journal January 04, 2024 13:57 UTC