With the numbers from Friday's jobs report, it is now known that 2016 saw the slowest job growth since 2012, a reflection of the fact that there are far fewer unemployed workers and the jobs market is much tighter today than earlier during the long, drawn-out jobs crisis.

During 2016, 2.16 million new payroll jobs were created, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for a monthly average of 180,000. Those were the slowest marks since 2012.



Job growth has slowed year-over-year, but in recent months it has still been more than enough to keep the unemployment rate trending down. Only around 50,000 to 100,000 new jobs a month will be needed in the years ahead to prevent unemployment from rising, according to calculations from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Job growth has averaged 165,000 over the past three months.

Because recent job growth has remained robust, it appears, job prospects have been good enough to entice some workers back into the job hunt. Labor force participation has grown by roughly 3 million over the past year, and the labor force participation rate has edged up, despite the ongoing retirement of the Baby Boom generation.