U.S. added 50,000 jobs in December as unemployment rate fell to 4.4%

The U.S. labor market produced mixed data in December, marking the first month of jobs numbers unaffected by the U.S. government shutdown that began in October.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 50,000 last month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday morning. That was lower than economist forecasts for 60,000. November's originally reported 64,000 job gain was revised modestly lower to 56,000. October's originally reported job loss of 105,000 was revised sharply lower to a loss of 173,000.

The December unemployment rate, however, was better than forecast, falling to 4.4% versus the consensus outlook of 4.5% and November's 4.6%.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) was little changed in the minutes following the report, continuing just above $90,000. U.S. stock index futures were continuing to hold small gains, with the Nasdaq higher by 0.4%, and the 10-year Treasury yield was holding at 4.18%, unchanged for the session.

Friday morning’s report marks a return to normalcy in reporting of official U.S. economic statistics after months of data that were either delayed or not reported at all due to last fall’s government shutdown.

Ahead of the data, market participants were nearly fully expecting the Federal Reserve policy to remain unchanged in January following the December rate cut. Views about a rate cut at the Fed's following meeting in March were more split, with the odds rising to about 39%, according to CME FedWatch.