The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is scheduled to publish the final jobs report for 2025 this Friday, concluding a year marked by subdued employment growth and considerable uncertainty. The projections for December’s employment figures are divergent, reflecting varied interpretations of seasonal hiring effects and broader economic conditions.
Consensus forecasts assembled by FactSet point to an addition of approximately 55,000 jobs in December, a figure that aligns with the incremental job growth observed earlier in the year but falls short of November’s preliminary gain of 64,000. However, some economists argue that holiday-related seasonal hiring could propel December’s employment numbers to exceed 105,000.
Accompanying these job growth expectations, the unemployment rate is anticipated to retreat slightly from November’s four-year peak of 4.6 percent to an estimated 4.5 percent in December. While such data may suggest resilience in the labor market, experts caution that these figures might misrepresent the underlying employment dynamics.
“The apparent strength suggested by these numbers is misleading,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. “The underlying pace of job growth remains weak and has not improved significantly for some time.”
Irrespective of whether job additions in December reach 55,000 or more than double that figure, the broader narrative of 2025 remains unchanged: employment growth has been exceptionally sluggish. Barring the anomalous pandemic-driven landscape of 2020, last year’s job creation totals are the weakest recorded in decades.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, summarized the employment landscape: “Total job gains for 2025 are projected to be merely 710,000. This marks the most subdued hiring environment outside of recessionary periods since 2003. In fact, even the post-Great Recession year of 2010 exhibited stronger hiring activity than 2025.”
This unevenness in job gains is further apparent across industry sectors. The predominant growth in 2025 has come from healthcare and leisure and hospitality – sectors that together represent about 22 percent of total employment.
The healthcare sector’s expansion is driven largely by demographic factors, including an aging population increasing demand for medical services. Leisure and hospitality growth has been fueled by spending patterns reflective of an increasingly segmented economy, where consumer behavior varies significantly by income level.
“Healthcare services are a high-cost necessity for most consumers, whereas leisure and hospitality consist of discretionary spending largely influenced by higher-income consumers,” noted Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll firm ADP. “These sectors underscore what is often referred to as a ‘K-shaped’ economy, with divergent experiences across different socioeconomic groups.”
Despite representing just over one-fifth of total employment, healthcare and leisure and hospitality accounted for a disproportionate 84 percent of all job additions from January through November 2025.
Conversely, the remaining 78 percent of the labor market has faced deteriorating conditions. Following a major tariff announcement by President Donald Trump in April 2025, key economic sentiment indicators plunged, exacerbating uncertainty and suppressing hiring intentions across multiple industries.
From April to November 2025, combined employment gains in healthcare and leisure and hospitality sectors outpaced net job creation across the entire economy during that period. Almost all other industries have experienced what Heather Long characterizes as a “hiring recession.”
Further confirming the labor market’s lethargy, BLS data released earlier this week revealed a decline in job openings and a slump in hiring activity, reaching its lowest point since before the pandemic-altered economy. Layoff rates and voluntary quit rates remained subdued, suggesting a constrained flow of labor turnover, which is often essential for a dynamic and healthy employment environment.
Current market conditions have resulted in prolonged job searches, with employment opportunities becoming increasingly selective—a phenomenon compared metaphorically to an “exclusive club,” reflecting limited worker mobility and access.
Emerging data offers some hope that the intensity of the employment slowdown may be abating. Job-cut announcements by U.S. firms fell to a 17-month low in December, with layoff plans dropping while hiring plans reached their highest December level since 2022, according to reports from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
“The year concluded with the fewest layoff announcements, coupled with increased hiring efforts,