U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh has pledged the nation will begin 2023 in a position to sustain “worker-centered progress.”

A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed the unemployment rate decreased to 3.5% in December, according to a Jan. 6 news release. The bureau reported “employment in leisure and hospitality rose by 67,000,” healthcare employment up by 55,000, construction by 28,000, and social assistance added 20,000 jobs in December.

“Since December 2021, the economy has added 4.5 million jobs, for a total of more than 10.7 million jobs since [President Joe Biden] took office and the most jobs added in any two-year period on record,” Walsh said in the release. “With significant gains in health care, leisure and hospitality and construction jobs, we rounded out 2022 with more of the steady, stable growth that helped our workforce recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and has empowered workers to take on new opportunities.” 

Walsh noted the U.S. Department of Labor uses its Good Jobs Initiative and other programs to help ensure "all working people have the skills, supports, protections and opportunities they need to survive," according to the release.

“We begin 2023 positioned to sustain this worker-centered progress, as the administration’s infrastructure investments and the resurgence of American manufacturing continue to create good jobs across the country,” Walsh said.