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The US employment statistics were released last month, and the number of jobs increased more than expected.

The unemployment rate has also fallen to the lowest level in decades, and President Biden has said that his economic plan is working.



Seung-mo Nam is a correspondent in Washington.



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Despite fears of a recession, the US labor market appears to be still strong.



The U.S. Department of Labor announced in its Employment Trends Report that non-farm payrolls increased by 223,000 in December last year.



That's down from the previous month's increase of 256,000, but more than the 200,000 expected by analysts compiled by the Wall Street Journal.



The Wall Street Journal said that last year, 4.5 million jobs increased, the second strongest growth rate after 2021 after 1940.



The unemployment rate also fell 0.1 percentage point from the previous month to 3.5%, the lowest level since the late 1960s.



The US unemployment rate has hovered between 3.5% and 3.7% since March last year, despite the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate hike last year.



The US economic media said that despite the interest rate hike and economic uncertainty, the US labor market was still overheated, but evaluated that inflationary pressure had decreased somewhat based on the slowdown in wage growth.



[Aaron Terrazas/US Economist: (The unemployment rate has gone down) and wage growth has slowed.

In conclusion, I think this is the result that most economists, especially those who are hard on inflation, want to see.]



In fact, average hourly wages in December of last year increased by 0.3% from the previous month, lower than the market forecast, and by 4.6% compared to the same period last year. ended up having



President Biden made a statement and emphasized that this employment trend announcement was good news for the US economy and was further evidence that his economic plan was effective.