The strength of the U.S. labor market has been one of the highlights of the U.S. economic performance. In December, the U.S. economy created 223,000 jobs, doubling the number of jobs needed to keep pace with population growth.223,000 jobs, double the number of jobs that need to be created to keep pace with population growth.

But there are signs of market cooling. The most important, temporary job creation, which has been falling steadily in recent months. According to The Wall Street Journal, in the last five months of 2022, temporary jobs fell by 110,800, of which 35,000 were cut in December alone. According to the newspaper, the reduction in temporary jobs has been observed several months before we began to see broader declines in job cuts in recent recessions.

Another indicator of the cooling of the labor market is the aggregate number of hours worked, which reached its peak at the end of the year. peak in 2021but has since shown a downward trend. By December 2022 it had reached levels similar to those before the pandemic.