Updated: 9:15 a.m. ET

Job growth was modest in December, and the U.S. unemployment rate was basically unchanged in the latest report from the U.S. Labor Department.

For Wall Street, that was good news, and the market moved higher.

The economy created about 50,000 jobs during the month. Estimates had ranged from that level to around 70,000, the department said in its report, released Friday morning, Jan. 9. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.4%.

But the report cut the government’s estimate of November jobs gains and said job losses in October were worse than originally reported.

Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.4%, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.7%, changed little in December. These measures “have shown little change over the year,” the Labor Department said.

The report is normally released the first Friday of each month, but was delayed because of last fall’s government shutdown.

The stock market was moving higher in futures trading. At 8:50 a.m. EST, the S&P 500 was up about 22 points. Nasdaq-100 futures were up more than 100 points, and the futures in the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 137 points.

The market overall is up 1% to 2% this year.

The jobs report released Jan. 9 showed the U.S. unemployment rate held steady in December.

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Revisions bring data down for October, November

A downside to the report was the revisions from October and November.

Job losses in October fell by 173,000. The original estimate was a decline of 105,000. Gains in November were trimmed to 56,000 from an original estimate of 76,000, the report said.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes the report, revises a month’s data twice after the original publication to account for additional data collected. It is also subject to later revisions. Data collection has been troublesome in recent years because much of it depends on telephone interviews, and often people don’t answer the phone.

Markets rising ahead of jobs data

Ahead of the report, stock futures were modestly higher, with trading in S&P 500 futures suggesting a gain of 10 points at the open. Nasdaq-100 futures were up 58 points, and Dow futures were up 45 points.

The S&P closed basically flat on Thursday at 6,921, with the Nasdaq down 104 points at 23,480. The Dow, however, rose 270 points, or 0.6%, to 49,266.

Meanwhile, crude oil was up 45 cents to $58.21 Friday morning, Jan. 9.

Gold had added $18.70 to $4,478 per troy ounce. Silver jumped more than 3% to $77.77 per once. Copper rose 2% to $5.91 a pound in New York.

The 10-year Treasury yield was up slightly at 4.19%. It closed Dec. 31 at 4.17%. The rate on a 30-year mortgage is around 6.2%, little changed this year.

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