US hiring may have rebounded last month before omicron surge

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is surging and new omicron infections are spiking, but America's employers are thought to have kept right on hiring in December on the strength of solid consumer spending.

One reason for optimism about the jobs data the government will issue Friday morning is that it wasn't likely affected much by the omicron wave. The hiring figures will reflect the state of the job market for the first half of December, before omicron viral cases spiked.

Economists have estimated that employers added 400,000 jobs last month, according to a survey by data provider FactSet. That would mark an increase from 210,000 in November. The unemployment rate is expected to have fallen from 4.2% to 4.1%, a relatively healthy level.

Many employers need to fill jobs because they continue to enjoy steady demand from customers despite chronic supply shortages. In fact, Friday's employment report will conclude one of the best years for American workers in decades, though it was one that followed 2020 — the job market’s worst year since records began in 1939, a consequence of the pandemic recession.

Companies posted a record number of open positions last year and offered sharply higher pay to try to find and keep workers. Americans responded by quitting jobs in droves, mostly for better pay at other employers.

All told, the number of jobs grew more than 4% in 2021 through November, the biggest gain since 1978, after a 6.2% plunge in jobs in 2020. So great was the pandemic-driven loss of employment, though, that even now, the economy remains nearly 4 million jobs shy of pre-pandemic levels.

Economists have cautioned that job growth may slow in January and possibly February because of the spike in new omicron infections, which have forced millions of newly infected workers...