The US added 216,000 jobs in December, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, coming in significantly higher than previous estimates of 175,000 and Wall Street's own economic forecasts.

ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson and Wolfe Research Chief Economist Stephanie Roth sit down with Yahoo Finance to go over December's jobs print and if results are already falling in line with the Federal Reserve's outlook for 2024.

"Our base case has been that the Fed is going to cut in Q2, I think March is a bit early," Roth says. "I think that still puts that in play. the report was a bit interesting."

"Now we see a resurgence in December in the private sector," Richardson says, referencing private payroll data. "Again, a healthy dose of leisure and hospitality after it had been declining for several months prior, and then continued strength in healthcare.

Click here to watch the full interview on the Yahoo Finance YouTube page or you can watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live here.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

- Just in terms of this better than expected jobs report that we're getting here this morning. What do you think this does for what Jared was just talking about in terms of the Fed's timeline here potentially delaying that first rate cut.

STEPHANIE ROTH: So our base case has been that the Fed's going to cut in Q2. I think March is a bit early. So I think that still puts that in play. The report was kind of a bit interesting. So when you look at the establishment survey, we got, yeah, a better than expected headline print. We got some downward revisions to the prior month, so keep that in mind. Some of that was kind of offset to some extent.

Wages were certainly strong. So that was certainly a negative when you look from the Fed's perspective. But then when you shift to the household survey, that looked quite a bit weaker. So we got a decrease in participation, but the unemployment rate was pretty steady because you had a pretty sharp drop in household employment, which is kind of a reversal of what you got the prior month. So the household survey was kind of a bit messy when you look at it. So, overall, I would say, probably it doesn't change the timing too much, at least from what we were expecting.

Perhaps, the March expectation is perhaps a bit early.

- Yeah. And Nela, I want to bring you in on this one, and just thinking about the story we've had for the US labor market over the last several months of this resilient, but continually slowing growth. I know that the headline job gains here are going to get a lot of the attention because that's the easiest number to digest, but does this really change, does this report change the story that you think is the overriding one right now for the US labor market?