The US economy generated 157,000 new jobs in December, the US government said on Friday afternoon.
The figure was below Wall Street economists' forecasts for jobs growth of around 175,000. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.4%.
A breakdown showed that gains in December were across all sectors except retail, where 19,600 jobs were lost. Analysts have been saying that US retailers were using fewer seasonal workers during the Thanksgiving and Christmas sales season.
The Labor Department revised employment growth for October and November higher to 312,000 and 137,000 jobs respectively.
Today's figure means 2.2 million new jobs were added in the US economy in 2004 as a whole, the best performance since 1999.
