The jobs... they're just not surfacing. Reuters' Glenn Somerville reports in an article properly entitled "December Job Gains Are Less Than Expected":

U.S. employers added 157,000 employees to payrolls in December, completing the strongest year for job growth since 1999, according to a government report on Friday that cemented expectations of rising interest rates in 2005.

[...]

The U.S. unemployment rate in December was unchanged at 5.4 percent.

Private-sector analysts said job growth was heartening but was too tepid to be inspiring or to push U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers into raising interest rates more aggressively.

"Another employment report, another month of mediocre job gains," said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. "The economy is decent enough to allow a continuation of the measured-pace rate increase policy."

If things are going to start getting better, I certainly they start getting better soon.