House Speaker John Boehner advocated spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs (Creative Commons).

U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December, according to the Labor Department, and the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent. According to The Washington Post, the numbers matched analysts’ forecasts and were consistent with job growth over the last several months. 

The biggest employment gains were in health care, food services, construction and manufacturing, The New York Times reported. 

“It’s not a home-run report by any stretch, but it’s constructive,” chief economist at RDQ Economics John Ryding told the Times. “It’s another month of fairly stable, solid, moderate job creation.”

From The Washington Post:

The new numbers showed that employers were not especially worried about the “fiscal cliff” — the series of tax increases and spending cuts that were scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 but which was averted at the last minute earlier this week — and did not ratchet back hiring on any large scale. While many executives voiced fear and annoyance at the hijinks in Washington over the standoff, the down-to-the-wire debate did not, from this report at least, appear to translate into fewer jobs.

Alan Krueger, the chief White House economist, released a statement Friday morning, the Post reported.

“While more work remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to heal from the wounds inflicted by the worst downturn since the Great Depression,” Krueger wrote. 

House Speaker John Boehner also released a statement, saying, “Too many Americans are still out of work and Washington has too much debt.” 

Boehner advocated spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs, the Post reported.

The year’s total job addition was 1.8 million. 

Read more of Neon Tommy’s coverage on U.S. unemployment here.

Reach Executive Producer Agnus Dei Farrant here.