US misses expectations for December’s jobs number

The number of jobs created in the US over December came in at 148,000, missing analysts’ expectations of 190,000. Despite this, Novembers job creation figure was revised up to 252,000 which puts average job creation over the last quarter in the US at 204,000 and a total figure of 2.1m jobs created in 2017. Related employment figures shows the all-important wage inflation figure rising to 0.3% from November and 2.5% over this time last year. Markets focussed on the yearly employment figure as an indication the US economy is running close to full employment yet remained puzzled by the persistent lack of inflation. The dollar sold off on the announcement as markets began to cast doubt on three rate hikes for 2018