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The U.S. economy gained 467,000 new jobs in January, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
The gain defied predictions that the economy would add no more than 150,000 jobs or even lose as many as 200,000.
The growth likely would have been stronger if the Omicron surge had not prevented two million people from actively seeking work in that month, the department noted.
About 3.6 million workers called in sick during January, compared to two million a year earlier and 1.1 million in January 2019.
The department also revised its November and December figures upward by 700,000 additional jobs.
“America’s jobs machine is going stronger than ever,” president Joe Biden declared on 4 February as he touted the report. “America is back to work.”
Leisure and hospitality businesses added jobs, as did transportation and warehousing, two sectors that often trim their payrolls after the December holiday season. The auto industry lost jobs as a shortage of computer chips continued to shrink production.
The tight jobs market elevated wages 5.7 percent in January, year on year, almost twice the pre-COVID annual average of 3 percent.
Pay rose briskly in business and professional services in January from December. Wages also rose for leisure and hospitality jobs, though more slowly than in other sectors, partly because pay there already had surged 13 percent last year.
The unemployment rate nudged up to 4 percent from 3.9 as more people began actively looking for work again now that prices are rising and the economy seems to be turning sunny side up.
That official rate might still mask some joblessness, as people who use up their unemployment benefits are no longer counted as unemployed.
The labor force participation rate—the number of eligible workers on the job or actively looking for one—rose to 62.2 percent, a COVID-era high but still below 2019 levels.
Still, there are about 60 people for every 100 open jobs, meaning that anyone who wants to work can find something to do. To draw those reluctant workers, many companies are continuing to raise wages, The Wall Street Journal said.
A strong jobs market has long been a key Federal Reserve benchmark as the central bank decides to raise interest rates and by how much.
The jobs report triggered a sell-off in treasury bonds, pushing their yields to 1.93 percent, their highest since September 2020, as investors feared the strong number would spur the Fed to raise rates higher and faster.
Bonds’ prices fall in a selloff, so yields rise in order to persuade investors to buy them.
TRENDPOST: While the job numbers show strong growth, what is not reported are the true unemployment numbers in the United States.
For example, when someone loses their job and goes on unemployment, they are counted as unemployed. But once their unemployment runs out and they are still out of work and can’t find a job, in the U.S.S.A., they are no longer counted… as human beings or being out of work. Instead, they are “missing workers.”
And back on the job numbers front, in December, the U.S. economy had 10.9 million open jobs and, by most estimates, about three million people are still unemployed after the COVID War.
Some holdouts will not achieve their ambitions to become performance artists, tech entrepreneurs, social media influencers, or other goals and will return to the labor force of Slavelandia.
However, the Great Resignation, which includes Baby Boomers who cashed out of the housing market for an early retirement, has permanently shrunk the American workforce.
A smaller and, probably, a more choosy, labor force will continue to drive companies to automate, a trend well under way that we signaled years ago and have updated recently in articles such as “Virus Speeds Automation: Bye Bye Workers” (21 Sep 2021), “No Workers? No Problem. We Got ‘Bots” (5 Oct 2021) and “Robots to Fill Open Jobs” (16 Nov 2021).