US Economy Gains 155,000 Jobs

January 04, 2013

The U.S. economy had a net gain of 155,000 jobs in December, while the unemployment rate held at 7.8 percent.

Friday's report from the Labor Department says many of the job gains were in manufacturing and construction.

Government experts made an upward revision to the prior month's unemployment rate, which was first reported as 7.7 percent.

Just over 12 million people are counted as unemployed in the United States. A bit less than five million of them have been out of work for 27 weeks or more.

Almost eight million people are working part-time, but would prefer to work full time.