U.S. job growth blew past expectations in the first month of the year as the labor market continued to breeze through inflation-fighting monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve.
The Labor Department released its monthly jobs report for January Friday and here are those numbers compared to Wall Street estimates:
- Non-farm payrolls: plus-517,000 versus plus-188,000, expected
- Unemployment rate: 3.4% versus 3.6%, expected
- Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: plus-0.3% versus plus-0.3%, expected
- Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: plus-4.4% versus plus-4.3%, expected
Friday’s shock numbers mark a sharp jump from the prior month, which saw payrolls rise by an upwardly revised 260,000. The unemployment rate slipped to 3.4% in January, the lowest since 1969.
The blowout figures come just as the employment picture began to show some signs of moderation, with monthly data on a downtrend in recent months before January’s outlier report.
The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 450 basis points, or 4.5%, since March 2022 in an effort to slow the economy and rein in inflation. Friday’s data shows that even with these moves, the U.S. labor market remains strong.
Click here to see the full report from Alexandra Semenova at Yahoo Finance.
