Live updates as Wall Street awaits final jobs report of 2023


Job seekers stand in line at the Hyatt booth setup at the Mega South Florida Job Fair held in the FLA Live arena on February 23, 2023 in Sunrise, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

If the US economy added 160,000 positions in December as expected, that will join an average of 232,000 jobs per month through November, and a total of around 2.78 million for the year.

While that’s far below the 4.79 million jobs gained in 2022 — the second-highest annual total since 1939 — 2023 will still go down as a year full of twists, turns and historic gains for the labor market.

In January last year, the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, a level not seen since 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.

In April 2023, the unemployment rate for Black workers hit a record low of 4.7%.

And then in June, the labor force participation rate for women in their prime working age (25-54 years old) hit an all-time high of 77.8%. The overall labor force participation rate in November was 62.8%, the highest it’s been since the start of the pandemic.

“It’s been a good year for Black men; it’s been a good year for Black women; it’s been a good year for women in general,” Jane Oates, a former Department of Labor official who is president of employment education nonprofit WorkingNation, told CNN in an interview.



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