US employers added 353,000 jobs in January, completely obliterating expectations of a slowdown.
US employers added a whopping 353,000 jobs in January — blowing past economists’ forecasts and confounding fears of a slowdown.
The blockbuster figure is nearly double the 185,000 jobs economists expected — and marks a surge from the higher-than-anticipated 216,000 jobs added in December and 199,000 increase in November.
The Labor Department said Friday that employment growth was strongest among professional and business services, which saw a gain of 74,000 in January — considerably higher than the average monthly increase of 14,000.
Healthcare, retail, and social assistance jobs also saw an increase, while employment across the mining and oil sectors decreased.
The unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7% in January for the third month in a row. The reading was a tick under the 3.8% that economists were forecasting.
Average hourly earnings, a key measure of inflation, rose by 19 cents, to $34.55.
“So much for imminent recession fears,” said Mark Hamrick, the senior economic analyst at Bankrate, noting that “the US economy has continued a surprisingly-robust, sustained recovery after the pandemic.”
January’s jobs report is the first major piece of economic data since the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting, which wrapped up on Wednesday when central bankers unanimously decided to keep interest rates at their current 22-year high.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell also shot down Wall Street’s hopes that the first of three highly-anticipated rate cuts could come in March.
