The economy added 225,000 jobs in January, showing continued strength
The economy of United States showed a exponential growth due to the 225,000 jobs added in January, the rate of the unemployment ticked up 3.6 percent thanks to people rejoining the labor force.
“I can say that it pretty much blew estimates out of the water,” said Beth Ann Bovino, the U.S. chief economist at S&P Global. “It’s just a really nice report. I’d also say that the recession fears of last year seem to be a thing of the past when you look at this report.”
The number of jobs added for the month was well above the average of 176,000 jobs per month in 2019 and higher than the 223,000 jobs added each month of 2018. In 2019, the United States added 269,999 jobs in January, an uptick that federal statisticians surmised had spiked because of the government shutdown as people took on part-time jobs. January was the 112th straight month of job growth since 2010.
Perhaps the most encouraging news in the latest jobs report is that the share of working Americans who have jobs or are actively looking for work — known as the labor force participation rate — ticked up to its highest level in seven years, about 63.4 percent. It’s another sign that the tight labor market is wooing more people back to the job market.
President Trump is staking his reelection campaign in part on the strength of the economy — touting the job creation under his administration repeatedly during the State of the Union address, for example.
But analysts have urged caution, pointing to other economic measures. Relatively modest wage growth, around 3.1 percent, remains a puzzle for economists who say it has not grown as expected given the increasingly tight labor market. Business investment has fallen for three straight quarters. And problems at Boeing as well as fears about the coronavirus have raised fears about more economic head winds on the horizon.
The revisions show that 2019 was the weakest year of job growth in eight years and that there was not such a big job boom in 2018 after the Trump administration’s tax cuts. Instead, what has become clearer is the job market remains fairly hot, but job growth has been gradually slowing since it peaked in 2014.
Published by The Washington Post, available here