Jobless rate holds steady in December

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. And, for Wall Street, that was good news. 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, . The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.4%. 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. ET, the Standard & Poor's 500 was up about 22 points. Nasdaq-100 futures were up more than 100 points, and the futures in the in the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 137 points. The market overall is up 1% to 2% this year.Markets rising ahead of jobs dataAhead 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. 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.