Quick Facts:
- Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 353,000 in January, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent.
- Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Employment declined in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry.
- In January, the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent for the third month in a row, and the number of unemployed people was little changed at 6.1 million.
- The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 1.3 million, was little changed in January. The long-term unemployed accounted for 20.8 percent of all unemployed people.
Looking Forward:
- The nation’s employers delivered a stunning burst of hiring to begin 2024, adding 353,000 jobs in January in the latest sign of the economy’s continuing ability to shrug off the highest interest rates in two decades. Friday’s government report showed that last month’s job gain — roughly twice what economists had predicted — topped the December gain of 333,000, a figure that was itself revised sharply higher. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low.
- Wages rose unexpectedly fast in January, too. Average hourly pay climbed a sharp 0.6% from December, the fastest monthly gain in nearly two years, and 4.5% from January 2023.
- January’s blowout job gain is all but sure to cause the Fed to take a cautious approach toward cutting its key interest rate, which affects many consumer and business loans. A March rate cut now seems definitely off the table.
- In another show of strength for the economy, the report contained sizable upward revisions to job growth during the previous two months. Gains for November and December were revised up by a total of 126,000 jobs to a respective 182,000 and 333,000, the government said, suggesting that the labor market is stronger than it previously appeared.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – The Employment Situation – January 2024
