Last week (December 8, 2015), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest – Employment Situation – December 2015 – and the data shows that “Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 292,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent”. The BLS noted that they had revised their estimates of the change in total non-farm payroll employment for October up by 9000, and the estimates for the change in November up 41,000. In other words, “employment gains in October and November combined worth 50,000 higher than previously reported”. The BLS also note that “over the past 3 months, job gains of averaged 284,000 per month.” This information was widely interpreted as a strong result with the employment growth spread across several industries and services. Construction employment was also strong for the third consecutive month. However, other indicators suggest a more static picture. Broad measures of labour underutilisation indicate no significant improvement in the latter part of 2015 in the US labour market. Further average hourly earnings were static and of not risen as strongly as in previous recoveries. The participation rate was unchanged at 62.4 per cent and remains well below previous peaks. As I have shown before, despite the robust employment growth, there is a bias towards jobs at the lower end of the pay distribution (see blog – US jobs recovery biased towards low-pay jobs.