2015 was a great year for jobs

The newest numbers on the state of the U.S. job market are good news on almost every front and show that 2015 was a blockbuster year for jobs. And that raises some important questions -- and doubts -- about what will happen in 2016.

The 292,000 jobs the Labor Department estimates the nation added in December, combined with upward revisions to past months, affirm that 2014 and 2015 had the strongest job gains since the boom of the late 1990s -- 5.8 million positions added to the nation's payrolls in a mere 24 months. It was enough to drive the jobless rate from 6.7 percent at the end of 2013 to 5 percent in December 2015.

Given the scars left by the 2008 recession and slow recovery, this is all unabashed cause for celebration. There are more opportunities for workers now. The bad news in the report, if you can call it that, was that average hourly earnings were unchanged, but given the very low inflation, American workers have still seen meaningful improvement in earnings power over the last year -- a 2.5 percent rise in hourly earnings against a backdrop of nearly zero inflation.

Which brings us to the questions that remain.

A big question for the year ahead is whether the breakneck pace of job growth of the last two years can continue now that the jobless rate is close to what economists consider full employment.

This story was originally published January 8, 2016 at 11:49 PM with the headline "2015 was a great year for jobs ."