The Tempe, Arizona-based group’s employment gauge rose to the highest level since March, while orders grew at the strongest pace in 10 months.
The increase in U.S. employment was in line with the 152,000 median estimate of 82 economists surveyed by Bloomberg before the Labor Department’s figures.
For all of 2012, the economy created 1.84 million jobs, matching the gain in 2011. It’s the best back-to-back reading since 2005-2006.
Rod Prince landed a new position last month as a senior database administrator for Sausalito, California-based Glassdoor, a jobs and career website. In the four weeks leading up to his hiring, Prince said he received phone calls about six different openings.
“I now feel pretty confident,” said Prince, 59. “I don’t have to pinch money. I feel the economy is doing better.”
In managing databases for Glassdoor, Prince said job listings are “accelerating quite significantly.”
Construction Gains
Payroll gains were broad-based with construction firms, manufacturers, health-care companies and restaurants all adding staff in December, the Labor Department’s data showed.
Nonetheless, the increases probably don’t satisfy some of the policy makers at the Federal Reserve, who last month said they will keep pumping money into the economy until the job market improves “substantially.”
Central bankers on Dec. 12 expanded a third round of so- called quantitative easing and said they would hold their target interest rate low “at least as long” as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent and inflation projections are for no more than 2.5 percent.