U.S. employers added 157,000 new jobs in December, slightly fewer than expected, bringing the year-end total to 2.2 million, the best showing in five years.

The Labor Department reported on Friday that more jobs were created in each of the two prior months than previously thought and that job growth for 2004 as a whole was the best since 1999.

While the December new jobs figure came in below Wall Street economists’ forecasts of 175,000, it followed upwardly revised totals of 137,000 jobs in November and 312,000 in October, which were previously reported as 112,000 and 303,000 respectively.

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