By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- The U.S. labor market defied fears of a Covid-driven slowdown in January, adding 467,000 nonfarm jobs in the month, well ahead of estimates.
The Labor Department also revised up December's figures sharply to show a rise of 510,000 rather than the 199,000 originally reported.
The figures illustrate the difficulties of compiling statistics at a time when the pandemic, and businesses' responses to it, are still dominating economic activity. Despite a rise in layoffs over the last two months as the Omicron wave swept the U.S., the economy appears to have added nearly 1 million jobs in that time.
In addition, wages continued to rise at a rate that suggests a buildup of inflationary pressure, as workers use their growing leverage with employers in a market characterized by staff shortages. Average hourly earnings rose by 0.7% on the month, rather than the 0.5% expected and their strongest increase since April last year. That took the annual rate of earnings growth up to 5.7%.
Even so, the jobless rate rose to 4.0% of the workforce, from 3.9% in December, and average weekly hours worked fell to 34.5 from 34.7, hitting their lowest since July 2020.