2026 kicks off with key economic data
Will unemployment in the US continue to rise, will inflation in the eurozone fall to 2%, and will German industry start to perform better again?
Commerzbank Economic Research
12/19/2025
US labor market: How severe is the slowdown?
The US labor market has lost considerable momentum. Hardly any new jobs have been created in recent months. In November, employment rose by only 64,000, and Federal Reserve Chairman Powell recently stated that these figures even overstate the actual trend. This is because the contribution of newly founded or closed companies must first be estimated. A subsequent comparison of these estimates with comprehensive social security data has shown for some time that the assumptions were significantly too optimistic. According to Powell, the reported job growth could be inflated by 60,000 per month, meaning that employment may not actually be increasing at all.
However, job growth in December is expected to be slightly higher than reported for November. This is because the temporary closure of parts of the federal government (“shutdown”) probably had a negative impact on business in November, for example on subcontractors to the public sector. Thus, a certain rebound is likely. We expect next month's report to show that 80,000 new jobs to have been created in December.
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