The Atlantic

Obama’s Final Jobs Report Marks 75 Consecutive Months of Growth

Over two million jobs were created in 2016, but economists believe there’s still room for improvement in 2017.
Source: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

The final jobs report for 2016 shows that the U.S. economy has added just over 2 million jobs last year. The Labor Department reported on Friday morning that the U.S. economy added 156,000 jobs in December, while the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4.7 percent. The numbers slightly missed expectations: Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal were expecting 183,000 jobs to be added.

Nevertheless, the December jobs report concludes a year of steady economic growth: For most of the year, the unemployment rate has been hovering just under when it comes to job creation.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
The Americans Who Need Chaos
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why peop
The Atlantic4 min read
KitchenAid Did It Right 87 Years Ago
My KitchenAid stand mixer is older than I am. My dad bought the white-enameled machine 35 years ago, during a brief first marriage. The bits of batter crusted into its cracks could be from the pasta I made yesterday or from the bread he made then. I

Related Books & Audiobooks