“Positive job growth, the drop in the unemployment rate to 4.9 percent and the uptick in wages show the U.S.is heading in the right direction”, said Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at Standard & Poor’s. The average workweek also saw an uptick of. Economic weakness overseas and reeling financial markets have slowed growth and squeezed manufacturers. Healthcare and social assistance followed with 44,000 new jobs, consistent with last month’s total. US unemployment rate has been on the drop for the past few years, but the wages haven’t been attractive to many professionals. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, expanded at a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said last week.
Advertisement
An ongoing buffer to more jobs growth, though, is that wages continue to be relatively low, contributing to the lack of interest in full-time jobs. The January jobs report shows a 2.5 percent wage increase over the past year.
According to MarketWatch, economists had expectations for January unemployment rate to be worth an increment of 180,000 nonfarm jobs.
With its January employment report, the government will publish its annual “benchmark” revisions and update the formulas it uses to smooth the data for regular seasonal fluctuations. It also incorporated new population estimates. The number of workers marginally attached to the labor force, including discouraged workers, was essentially the same as a year earlier. But when asked by reporters, he acknowledged that many Americans are still feeling the effects of the recession – and that the labor force participation rate, 62.7 percent, is still comparatively low, indicating many Americans aren’t actively looking for work. “However, while wage growth is good news for households, price and rent increases of 3 to 4 percent during the same period have completely offset these wage gains”. Health care has added 470,000 jobs over the past 12 months, with about two-fifths of the growth occurring in hospitals. Since mining payrolls reached a peak in September 2014, they have fallen 16 percent.
Still, stock investors greeted the jobs report with sharp losses.
“The January report is a solid report in disguise”, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and president of the conservative American Action Forum. Oil prices have plunged about 70 percent in the last 18 months, forcing firms like oilfield services provider Schlumberger to slash their workforces. Courier services hiring also probably slowed.
Still, December’s addition of 292,000 jobs was robust. Furthermore, the source revealed that “transportation and warehousing jobs are still hiring at a faster pace than the overall US job market”.
Advertisement
That was depsite separate figures released on Friday showing the U.S. trade deficit rose in December, as exports fell for a third straight month – highlighting the pressures on exporters from a stronger dollar and weaker global demand.
