Job growth skyrocketed in December, boosting one of the strongest labor markets in US history

(CNN) —& The US economy closed out 2024 with another month of massive job growth, adding 256,000 positions in December.The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1% from 4.2%, wrapping up a year that marked a return to pre-pandemic norms, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.While the final jobs report for 2024 underscores how the US labor market has turned the corner since the pandemic, there’s plenty of uncertainty as to what 2025 could bring for the trajectory of the labor market — in part because of President-elect Donald Trump’s potential policy changes involving trade, immigration, taxes and the federal workforce.Including December’s gains,& which are subject to revision, the economy added about 2.2 million jobs in 2024, an average of 186,000 jobs per month. That’s in line with annual totals from 2017 to 2019 but marks a slowdown from the blowout gains seen during the pandemic recovery during the prior years.“The labor market is strong, and in an aggregate sense, it really doesn’t get much better than this,” Elizabeth Crofoot, senior economist at labor analytics firm Lightcast, told CNN. “There’s very robust job growth. We have low unemployment — it ticked down in the latest month. Layoffs are low....