But the job growth fell short of expectations based on a strengthening economy. And the drop in unemployment was partly because people stopped looking for work.

Private employers added a net total of 113,000 jobs last month and the government shed 10,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday.

“It’s a bit of a mixed bag,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Many analysts hoped to see larger job gains, and the drop in the unemployment rate is unlikely to be sustained, he said.

“The labor market ended last year with a bit of a thud,” he said. “But I think things will get much better this year.”

The economy has shown signs of steady improvement in recent weeks, leading many economists to expect more job creation. The Labor Department said Thursday that fewer people applied for unemployment benefits over the month than in any four-week period in more than two years. An increase in consumer spending made this past holiday season the best in four years.

There were positive signs in the December jobs report. Government revisions showed more people were hired in previous months than the government first estimated. The economy added 210,000 jobs in October, above the previous figure of 172,000. November’s total was revised to 71,000, up from 39,000.

President Barack Obama said the new jobs report shows the economy is moving in the right direction. But he acknowledged that hiring and growth must still accelerate.

Over the past three months, the economy has added an average of 128,000 jobs. That’s just enough to keep up with the population growth. Nearly double is generally needed to significantly reduce the unemployment rate.

But other factors can affect the unemployment rate, at least temporarily. One key reason for the drop was that the government no longer counts people as unemployed when they stop looking for work.

Fewer people said they were out of work last month. The number of unemployed fell by more than 500,000 to just under 14.5 million, the lowest since April 2009.

Still, the unemployment rate has topped 9 percent for 20 months, the longest such streak on record. And even with last year’s job gains, the unemployment rate fell only from 9.7 percent to 9.4 percent.

Stocks edged lower after the disappointing report was released The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 44 points in midday trading.

Through all of 2010, the nation added 1.1 million jobs, or an average of 94,000 jobs a month.

Economists expect hiring will ramp up this year, with some predicting double last year’s total of jobs or more. A tax cut package that goes into effect this month should boost consumer and business spending.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered a more optimistic outlook for the economy during testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Still, Bernanke said it could take four to five years for unemployment to drop to a historically normal rate of around 6 percent.

“Persistently high unemployment, by damping household income and confidence could threaten the strength and sustainability of the recovery,” he warned.

The health care and leisure and hospitality sectors showed the strongest job gains last month. Health care added about 36,000 jobs, while restaurants and hotels hired more than 29,000 new workers.

Retailers added 12,000 net new jobs, after shedding jobs the previous month. Manufacturers hired a net total of 10,000 new workers, after losing jobs for four straight months. The bleeding continued in construction, which cut 16,000 jobs.

Companies hired nearly 16,000 temporary workers, the fewest since July.

Including those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work, and those who have given up looking for work, the underemployment rate was 16.7 percent last month. That’s down from 17 percent in November.

The average work week didn’t increase, remaining at 34.3 for the third straight month. But average weekly earnings ticked up by just over a dollar, to $781.35. The additional jobs and slightly higher pay translates into a modest gain in incomes, economists said, which could bolster future spending.

Article from: The Maui News

WAILUKU – Landowners who want to build new housing units in Central, South and West Maui will soon have to pay new “impact fees” for the construction of new school facilities.

The state Department of Education announced Wednesday that it would immediately begin collecting the fees, which range from $5,373 to $5,778 per single-family home, and from $2,055 to $2,451 for each new multifamily unit.

Previously, developers could be required to pay school impact fees as a condition of county or state land-use approvals. But a 2007 law gave the DOE the power to collect the fees directly in areas that are expected to see a rapid growth in school populations. Maui is the first place in the state to see the new fees implemented, with West Hawaii expected to be the next in line.

“These are all areas where we anticipate the next big wave of residential growth,” said Heidi Meeker of the DOE Facilities Development Branch.

On Maui, all properties in the Maui, Baldwin and Lahainaluna high school complexes will be affected.

That means anyone seeking to build in an area served by those schools will be required to pay the fee – including both large developers and individual homeowners, Meeker said.

Major projects would likely trigger the requirement when they start to apply for permits with the county Planning Department, while small landowners would be required to pay when they come in for building permits, she said.

Public hearings on the proposed fees were held in October at Lahainaluna High School and Pomaikai Elementary School.

Meeker said she couldn’t estimate the amount of money that would be collected through the program.

“It’s really going to depend on the rate at which things are built,” she said.

While the fees would not cover the total cost of building new schools, they would help provide classrooms for a growing population, she said.

“It’s just a little bit of assurance that we will have adequate land for new schools, and some amount of construction money,” she said.

* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.

Canadian dollar heads higher amid strong American data on

jobs, service sector

TORONTO – The Canadian dollar moved higher against the American currency Wednesday amid good news on employment and expansion in the U.S. service sector.

The greenback gained against other currencies but the loonie ended the session up 0.21 of a cent to 100.36 cents US.

The Canadian currency had been below parity earlier in the day but strengthened after U.S. payroll company ADP estimated that the American economy created 297,000 jobs during December.

That’s nearly higher than the general forecast by economists.

“The Canadian dollar is doing better because a good U.S. number should be good for Canada,” said John Curran, senior vice-president at CanadianForex.

“If you get a good number out of the U.S., it’s going to basically flow into Canada at some point.”

The ADP data was released two days before the release of the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for December. Economists expect the official data to show that the U.S. economy created about 150,000 jobs during December.

Other data showed a strong reading in the Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index for December, which rose to 57.1, a faster pace of expansion than the 55.3 reading that was expected.

On Monday, the ISM’s manufacturing index for December came in at a six-month high of 57, which raised hopes for economic growth in the neighbourhood of four per cent.

Also supporting the loonie was a turnaround in oil and copper prices.

Oil prices started to turn around amid data showing a larger than forecast drop in U.S. oil consumption last week, pushing the February contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange ahead 92 cents to US$90.30 a barrel.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a bigger than expected decline in U.S. crude-oil inventories for last week, dropping 4.2 million barrels, almost double the decline that analysts had expected.

Copper finished higher with the March contract on the Nymex up four cents to US$4.41 a pound while gold prices continued to fall back as the positive economic data strengthened the U.S. dollar against many currencies and persuaded investors to trim their bullion holdings. The February bullion contract in New York lost $5.10 to US$1,373.70 an ounce.