The US economy added 312,000 jobs to nonfarm payrolls last month, the highest tally since February. In addition, numbers for October and November were revised upward by 58,000 jobs.

Mid-January is a high time for hiring at many companies due to budgeting plans and the fact it's the new year, points out career coach and HR executive Angela Smith. Because it is a popular time to hire, January is also a competitive time to land a new job, and the process may take unusually long due to the high number of applicants, Smith says.

An appellate court has remanded a case involving the Browning-Ferris standard to the court of the National Labor Relations Board, holding that the NLRB did not apply the standard properly. The court says the NLRB may create the joint-employment standard, which considers "an employer's reserved right to control and its indirect control over employees' terms and conditions of employment," Kate Tornone writes.

Don't shy away from getting employees to open up about their weaknesses, says Sarah Wagener, chief people officer at DoorDash. Such discussions help employees identify problems, improve performance and see the importance of excelling where they are, she says.

When a 68-year-old woman ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she was surprised when she had a serious allergic reaction, because she had never been allergic to peanuts before. However, the person who donated the woman's newly transplanted lung did have a peanut allergy, and this was a rare case when a food allergy was transferred from an organ donor to a receiver.