Job growth in January exceeded expectations by 517,000; the unemployment rate reached a 53-year low. Compared to the estimated 3.6%, the jobless rate dropped to 3.4%. The unemployment rate has not been this low since May of 1969.
Notably, leisure and hospitality added the most employment overall with 128,000. Professional and business services (82,000), government (74,000), and health care were other big gainers (58,000).
According to today’s report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonfarm payroll employment increased overall by 517,000 in January, while the unemployment rate remained stable at 3.4 percent. Jobs increased across the board, with increases in leisure and hospitality, professional, and both business and medical services. Government employment increased as well, in part due to the workers’ return from a strike.
In January, both the labor force participation rate, at 62.4 percent, and the employment-
population ratio, at 60.2 percent, were unchanged after removing the effects of the annual adjustments to the population controls. These measures have shown little net change since
early 2022 and remain below their pre-pandemic February 2020 levels (63.3 percent and 61.1 percent, respectively).
There were 1.9 million people without a job for less than five weeks in January. At 1.1 million, the number of long-term unemployed (those without a job for 27 weeks or more) remained steady. 19.4 percent of all unemployed people in January were long-term jobless.
Additionally, wages showed strong rises for the month. Average hourly wages rose by 0.3%, in line with predictions, and 4.4% from a year earlier, above expectations by 0.1 percentage points but falling short of December’s gain of 4.6%.
Being in a high inflation environment, Chairman Jerome Powell, reported, “The labor market “remains extremely tight” and is still “out of balance.” The Fed is attempting to orchestrate a “soft landing” for an economy under pressure from global concerns that hindered growth in 2022 as well as inflation.
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