U.S. economy adds 148,000 jobs in December

The U.S. economy added 148,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department says, issuing the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, unchanged from November.

Analysts had predicted the Labor Department report would show another month of solid job gains. But it's a sharp dropoff from the revised November result of more than 250,000 jobs.

"Employment gains occurred in health care, construction, and manufacturing," the BLS says. Many other sectors and nearly all demographic groups saw little change.

With the data for December now in, U.S. job growth fell in 2017, to 2.1 million from 2.2 million in 2016. The result narrowly maintains the country's seven-year streak of adding at least 2 million jobs.

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