#ThanksObama! The Washington Post reports:
The U.S. economy finished the year with a red-hot hiring spree, adding 292,000 new jobs as the unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent, according to new government data released Friday morning.
The latest jobs report exceeded the expectations of economists and investors and provided a reassuring note about the resiliency of the labor market, even amid volatile oil prices, a major slowdown in China, and modest overall growth at home.
In all, the nation added 2.65 million jobs in 2015, the second-best year for hiring since 1999 and one that improved markedly in the last quarter. The economy added an average of 284,000 new monthly positions between October and December; in the first three-quarters of the year, the monthly pace was 200,000. Wage growth remains tepid, but the unemployment rate stands at its lowest point in more than seven years.