January 4, 2002 — 2002-01-04

Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Good morning. I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the December employment and unemployment statistics that we released this morning. Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 124,000 in December, following job losses that averaged about 400,000 a month in October and November. Since the recession began in March, payroll employment has fallen by 1.4 million. The December decline reflected continued losses in the private sector (-187,000), particularly manufacturing, retail trade, air transportation, and help supply. These losses were partially offset by employment gains in several services industries and in government. The unemployment rate, at 5.8 percent in December, continued its upward trend and has increased by 1.9 percentage points since October 2000. Looking in more detail at the December data from our survey of employers, job losses continued in manufacturing (-133,000).