US hiring held firm in December capping weakest year of growth since pandemic
Hiring held firm in the US last month, official data showed, amid uncertainty over the strength and direction of the world’s largest economy.Employers added 50,000 jobs to the US labor force last month, capping the weakest year of growth since the pandemic, according to data released from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.The closely watched reading was slightly shy of the approximately 73,000 jobs economists expected to be added in the US economy in December.Previous readings for October and November were also revised lower, with the BLS now estimating that the US added 76,000 fewer jobs during those two months.In October, during the longest US government shutdown in history, the US economy shed 173,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate, which rose to a four-year high of 4.6% in November, fell back to 4.4% in December.Donald Trump was re-elected after promising to rebuilding the US economy, which he claimed had been destroyed under predecessor Joe Biden.He also pledged to bring down prices rapidly for millions of Americans.
The US president claims the economy has since taken off on his watch – and growth surged in the third quarter of last year,But the labor market, which economists watch closely to determine the strength of the broader economy, has slowed dramatically,US employers added 584,000 over the course of 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, according to official data,In 2024, the last year of Biden’s presidency, they added 2 million,The White House is meanwhile facing questions after Trump posted a chart on his Truth Social platform on Thursday evening – ahead of the following morning’s official data release – which appeared to use data from Friday’s jobs report to show growth in private sector jobs.
Bloomberg News was first to report the apparent embargo breach,While the president is typically briefed on the jobs data the day before its release, publicly commenting on economic data before it is officially published is an unusual breach in protocol,In a statement to the Guardian, the White House confirmed that “there was an inadvertent public disclosure of aggregate data that was partially derived from pre-released information” and that it is “accordingly reviewing protocols regarding economic data releases”,Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said: “Job growth in 2025 was the weakest in over a decade, outside of the pandemic,Instead of lowering costs like he promised, the second year of the Trump presidency is kicking off with a weaker job market and higher prices.
”Economists describe the labor market as being in a “no hire, no fire” phase, in which job growth continues but remains subdued,Data from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed that layoffs in December were nearly half the level of those recorded in November,After the government shutdown halted economic data collection in October and the beginning of November, December was the first month that the statistics bureau could fully collect jobs data,Federal Reserve officials are expected to weigh this data at their next policy meeting at the end of January, when they will decide whether to lower interest rates, which sit at a range of 3,5% to 3.
75%, or keep them on hold.Officials have signaled that a pause in cuts is likely.Minutes from the board’s December meeting revealed stark division when members made their third consecutive cut to rates last month.“Some participants suggested that, under their economic outlooks, it would likely be appropriate to keep [rates] unchanged for some time,” the notes said.Samuel Tombs, the chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said on Friday: “December’s labor market report is weak enough to keep the possibility of a March easing of Fed policy firmly in the mix.
The sluggish headline payroll print was underpinned by a mere 37,000 increase in private payrolls,”In a press conference last month, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said officials would proceed with caution as they remain hopeful that the labor market will stabilize in the upcoming year and inflation will start to cool,Prices rose 2,7% in November, a cooling-off after rising 3% in September,But the Fed’s vigilance over the economy continues to clash with the outlook of Trump and his economic advisers, who have demanded lower interest rates.
Cutting rates could stimulate economic growth, including bolstering the labor market, but at the risk of making prices rise faster.In a speech on Thursday, the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, urged the Fed to continue cutting rates this year.“It’s the only ingredient missing for even stronger economic growth, which is why the Fed should not delay,” he said.
Spotify no longer running ICE recruitment ads, after US government campaign ends
Spotify is no long running advertisements for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the streaming service has confirmed, after the Trump administration campaign ended in late 2025.“There are currently no ICE ads running on Spotify,” the Swedish company said in a statement. “The advertisements mentioned were part of a US government recruitment campaign that ran across all major media and platforms.”Since April, the government ads have also run on Amazon, YouTube, Hulu and Max among other streaming companies, with the aim of recruiting more than 10,000 deportation officers by the end of 2025.Previously, Spotify said that the ads, which encouraged US listeners to “fulfil your mission to protect America” and offered $50,000 in signing bonuses, did not “violate our advertising policies”
UK ministers considering leaving X amid concern over AI tool images
UK ministers are considering leaving X as a result of the controversy over the platform’s AI tool, which has been allowing users to generate digitally altered pictures of people – including children – with their clothes removed.Anna Turley, the chair of the Labour party and a minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office, said on Friday that conversations were happening within the government and Labour about their continued use of the social media platform, which is controlled by Elon Musk.The government has come under mounting pressure to leave X after the site was flooded with images including sexualised and unclothed pictures of children generated by its AI tool, Grok.Turley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “X, first and foremost, has to get its act together and prevent this. It has the powers to do this, and we need to make sure there are firm consequences for that
Grok turns off image generator for most users after outcry over sexualised AI imagery
Grok, Elon Musk’s AI tool, has switched off its image creation function for the vast majority of users after a widespread outcry about its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery.The move comes after Musk was threatened with fines, regulatory action and reports of a possible ban on X in the UK.The tool had been used to manipulate images of women to remove their clothes and put them in sexualised positions. The function to do so has been switched off except for paying subscribers.Posting on X, Musk’s social media network, Grok said: “Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers
Grok AI: is it legal to produce or post undressed images of people without their consent?
The deluge of images of partly clothed women – stripped by the Grok AI tool – on Elon Musk’s X has raised further questions over regulation of the technology. Is it legal to produce these images without the subject’s consent? Should they be taken off X?In the UK alone there is some doubt over the answers to these queries. Social media regulation is a nascent area, let alone trying to control the deployment of artificial intelligence. There are laws in place to tackle the problem, such as the Online Safety Act, but the government has yet to introduce additional measures such as banning nudifying apps.It is a criminal offence to share intimate images of someone without their consent under the Sexual Offences Act in England and Wales, which includes images created by AI
Grok being used to create sexually violent videos featuring women, research finds
Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok has been used to create sexually violent and explicit video content featuring women, according to new research, as the British prime minister added to condemnation of images it has created.Grok has also been used to undress an image of Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in the US on Wednesday, and to portray her with a bullet wound in her forehead.Research by AI Forensics, a Paris-based non-profit organisation, found about 800 images and videos created by the Grok Imagine app that included pornographic content. Paul Bouchaud, a researcher at AI Forensics, said: “These are fully pornographic videos and they look professional.”One photorealistic AI video viewed by the NGO showed a woman, tattooed with the slogan “do not resuscitate”, with a knife between her legs
Hundreds of nonconsensual AI images being created by Grok on X, data shows
New research that samples X users prompting Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok demonstrates how frequently people are creating sexualized images with it. Nearly three-quarters of posts collected and analyzed by a PhD researcher at Dublin’s Trinity College were requests for nonconsensual images of real women or minors with items of clothing removed or added.The posts offer a new level of detail on how the images are generated and shared on X, with users coaching one another on prompts; suggesting iterations on Grok’s presentations of women in lingerie or swimsuits, or with areas of their body covered in semen; and asking Grok to remove outer clothing in replies to posts containing self-portraits by female users.Among hundreds of posts identified by Nana Nwachukwu as direct, nonconsensual requests for Grok to remove or replace clothing, dozens reviewed by the Guardian show users posting pictures of women including celebrities, models, stock photos and women who are not public figures posing in snapshots.Several posts in the trove reviewed by the Guardian have received tens of thousands of impressions and come from premium, “blue check” accounts, including accounts with tens of thousands of followers
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