US employers have been adding jobs with the enthusiasm of someone hopping on a call with their manager at 4pm on a Friday. The economy added just 50,000 jobs last month, according to the data released yesterday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The first full jobs report since the government shutdown last fall showed that December’s jobs creation was significantly lower than the 73,000 jobs that Dow Jones analysts predicted, completing the picture of an anemic hiring year. The US added an average of 49,000 jobs a month in 2025, compared to 168,000 in 2024—making 2025 the worst year for job creation outside of a recession since 2003.

It helped to wear scrubs

Hiring was concentrated in a handful of industries:

• Without the 700,000 healthcare and social assistance jobs added last year, the total private sector employment gain would’ve been a paltry 20,000 jobs.
• Manufacturing jobs declined by 8,000 in December, marking the eighth month of declines, while business and professional services lost a total of 97,000 jobs last year.
• A slowdown in hiring at the federal government and mass layoffs left it with 277,000 fewer employees than it had last January.

On the bright side…employers largely avoided mass layoffs, and December’s unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4% from 4.5% the prior month. Analysts think that sets the Fed up to keep interest rates steady at its meeting this month. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Fed estimates the Q4 economic growth at a robust 5.1%, as businesses and shoppers continued to spend.

Why fewer offer letters then? Employers said they hired fewer people as they faced economic uncertainty and waited to see what the efficiency gains from AI would be. According to the latest data, worker productivity is growing, which heralds potential wage gains but also means employers might get away with hiring fewer workers. In Q3, the share of the economy consisting of worker salaries and benefits dropped to its lowest level since the government began keeping those records in 1947.—SK

Trump pushes oil execs to invest $100 billion in Venezuela. President Trump predicted that such a deal would come together quickly while meeting with 20 executives from US oil companies at the White House yesterday. The president is trying to get them to return to Venezuela following the arrest of its president by the US. The country’s oil infrastructure requires expensive upgrades, and Trump had floated the $100 billion figure before the meeting—but industry insiders told CNN that companies may be reluctant to shell out the necessary funds due to the current low price of oil. And during the meeting, Exxon’s CEO called Venezuela “uninvestable” in its present state. Earlier in the day, President Trump said on Truth Social that he had canceled a “previously expected second Wave of Attacks” on Venezuela because the US and Venezuela are “working well together,” in part on rebuilding the country’s oil infrastructure. Meanwhile, the US intercepted a fifth oil tanker to continue its blockade.

Grok’s image generation feature limited on X after outcry over sexualized images. Following international backlash from users and regulators over the designed-to-be-politically-incorrect chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI creating sexualized images of women and children for users, the company restricted Grok’s ability to generate images by request through social posts to paying subscribers. But that hardly shuts down the feature, which both paying and nonpaying X members could still use to create explicit images yesterday via the Grok tab or through an independent Grok app.

Meta goes nuclear to power data centers. The Facebook parent has inked deals with TerraPower, Oklo, and Vistra to obtain nuclear energy to power its Prometheus AI data center, clinching what the Associated Press says is enough power to provide electricity to 5 million homes. The data center cluster is being built in Ohio. Meta said the deals will provide access to up to 6.6 gigawatts of new and existing energy by 2035. The company didn’t reveal financial details of the deals. Nuclear power, once shunned as too risky, has become an attractive option for tech companies in need of massive amounts of power to keep up with their AI ambitions.—AR

As if the three meetings being taken on speaker around you weren’t distracting enough, soon your tiny desk girlfriend is going to be asking you about your weekend plans. The tech industry’s annual CES trade show in Las Vegas this week featured a lot of questionably AI-enabled tools.

Among the products unveiled at the show were multiple AI holographic companions designed to sit on your desk, including Lepro’s Ami. And companies asking you to talk to a sentient pneumatic tube container wasn’t even the wildest thing at CES. The conference was full of AI everything:

• Many AI companies showed off their tech in humanoid robots marketed as home helpers. But demonstrations seemed to highlight that—at least for now—they’re much slower than you’d prefer your laundry to be folded.
• Narwal introduced a robo-vacuum that uses AI to quiet down around cribs and clean heavily pet-trafficked areas. It also notifies the user about toys it finds underneath furniture and can also recognize and alert you to any misplaced jewelry or other valuables it finds beneath couches.
• There were also AI-enabled microwaves and hair clippers, plus bartenders that can supposedly tell if you’re too drunk to serve.

Meanwhile, new health and wellness tech…ranged from impressive to meh. Dephy’s $4,500 exoskeleton called Sidekick uses Hoka-like shoes and robotic ankle monitors to help wearers walk with less effort, a game-changer for those with mobility issues. And Nuralogix debuted an $899 magic mirror that gives you a longevity score based on a 30-second selfie.—MM