U.S. employers added back far more jobs than expected in January, even as Omicron cases surged at the beginning of the new year.
The Labor Department released its January jobs report Friday morning and here are the main metrics from the print, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Non-farm payrolls: Plus 467,000 versus plus125,000 expected, and a revised plus 510,000 in December
- Unemployment rate: 4.0 percent versus 3.9 percent expected, 3.9 percent in December
- Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: 0.7 percent vs. 0.5 percent expected, and a revised 0.5 percent in December
- Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: 5.7 percent vs. 5.2 percent expected, 4.7 percent in December
The January jobs report marks the first to reflect a fuller impact from the Omicron variant. The highly contagious variant first discovered in the U.S. in late November had only just begun to spread by the time of the December jobs report survey period. Around the time of the January survey period in the middle of the month, new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. had soared to a record.
Still, job growth held up much more robustly than expected at the start of the year. Plus, payrolls gains for December were sharply upwardly revised, further pointing to momentum in the labor market heading into the new year. Non-farm payrolls grew by 510,000 in December, the Labor Department said in its revision on Friday, or well above the 199,000 previously reported last month.
Click here to see the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.