How many jobs did the US economy add in January?

On By Littum

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Employment declined in January, when US employers added 143,000 jobs in the middle of Los Angeles fire, freed weather over much of the nation and uncertainty generated by President Donald Trump’s trade and immigration policies.

But wages gains for the previous two months were revised by a full 100,000, depicting an even more robust picture of the labor market at the end of 2024.

Unemployment, which is calculated from a separate study, fell from 4.1% to 4%, an eight -month low, the work department said Friday.

Economists had estimated that 170,000 jobs were added last month, according to the median estimate of those examined by Bloomberg.

But November’s employment gains were revised from 212,000 to 261,000, and December from 256,000 to 307,000, flowering additions that partially coincided with a burst of small business optimism after Trump’s election victory in early November.

Last month’s job study was taken the week of January 12 and reflects the results of the labor market before Trump joined January 20.

Have the job numbers been revised down?

Separately, in March 2024, the total US employment was revised with 598,000, a historically massive downgrade, but far less than 818,000 dropped labor originally estimated in August. The change, based on state unemployment registers that reflect actual wages rather than the government’s usual monthly investigation, effectively means that the nation added an average of 50,000 fewer jobs a month from April 2023 to March 2024.

Which industries do most jobs add?

Healthcare, a reliable pay engine over the past few years, led January’s job gains with 44,000. Retail added 34,000 and the public sector, 32,000.

But leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and bars, lost 3,000 jobs. Professional and business services, a scattered sector that includes white collar and other office workers, throwing 11,000. Meanwhile, the production added only 3,000 positions and construction, 4,000.

How much does wages increase?

Average hourly earnings rose 17 cents to $ 35.87 and pushed the annual increase from 3.9% to 4.1%.

Salary growth has generally subsided, as pandemic -related work shortages have subsided, which helps the temperature tin flation. This is because employers often pass their higher labor costs to consumers through price increases.

A rule of thumb says that annual wage increases must fall to 3.5% to adapt to Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2%, but the recent strong growth in productivity or output per year. Workers can allow companies to elaborate on 4% increases without having to raise prices, says economists.

Will there be another interest rate?

Although job growth subsided last month, the mood was still solid, and the falling unemployment rate, large upward revisions for the previous two months, and pick -up in wage increases probably do little to spur bold to lower the rates anymore in the near future.

When inflation was fixed at elevated levels recently and the economy did well, Fed left its most important interest rate unchanged at a meeting last week. The central bank cut the rate by a percentage point late last year, as its preferred inflation measure slowed down from 5.6% in 2022 to 2.8%, moderately over its 2% target.

But forecasters say that Trump’s tariffs on imports and deportations of immigrants lack permanent legal status – a program that would limit the work supply and increase wages – could force the bold to put its efforts for a longer period.

Austan Goolsbee, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a voting member of Fed’s Rate setting committee this year, told USA Today, “This is another month showing stability.” While job growth was slowing down, “150,000 (job gains) a month is still a pretty solid month.”

Bold, he added, has appropriately slowed down the pace of its focus cuts, as trying to make sense of more cross streams in the economy, including Trump’s policy. But he added that a strong job report should not prevent bold from resuming cuts as long as its preferred inflation measure, now almost 3%, continues to fall.

“I think inflation seems to be on a way to go down to 2%,” Goolsbee said, referring to Fed’s goals. “If it continues, I think it would be appropriate for the rates to fall to something near where to settle.”

And strong wage increases, he said, should also not deter the fat -officials from lowering the rates. “Salaries tend to hang prices,” he said. “They are not a good indicator of inflation that is looking forward.” He also said that strong productivity growth “means that wages can grow faster than before without generating inflation.”

Goolsbee is generally considered one of Fed’s more Dovish members – or more concerned about high interest rates that can lead to a recession than low interest rates that can trigger inflation.

Fed has lowered its prognosis from four interest rates in 2025 to only two. However, some economists say the central bank will be even more cautious and remain on the sidelines this year.

Fed raised the rate of a 23-high in 2022 and 2023 to increase borrowing costs and cool a pandemic induced inflation tip.

How’s the job market in the US right now?

The job market was probably buffet by several forces last month. Many residents of the Los Angeles area were ordered to evacuate their homes after the fire began January 7. Although many worked at least part of the following week when the work department conducted its employment investigation, others couldn’t, Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to clients.

As a result, the research company estimates that Blazes reduced job growth by approx. 20,000 last month, while cold breathing wages with a similar amount, especially in industries such as construction, restaurants and hotels. Last month, the coldest January was in the US since 2011, according to Accuweather.

Are there many companies that dismissed workers?

At the same time, layoffs have remained unusually low. As employers typically cut many workers at the end of the year, attenuation of January -employment plots, the sparse redundancies probably increased last month’s net winnings after the figures were adjusted seasonally adjusted, Goldman said.

More broadly, forecasters say that Trump’s threats of hitting imports from Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs are stepping on concerns that can already deter employment.

Seven -seven percent of US leaders said they were more stressed on their way into 2025 than they were a year earlier, according to a Online study of 1,000 leaders late last year by Sentry, a business insurance company.

Sixty -seven percent of the company’s officials said their main concern was financial uncertainty.

“Steep customs and political uncertainty could push businesses to increasingly adopt waiting-and-seeing behavior and withdrawing on employment when navigating in higher input costs and retaliatory measures,” Lydia Bousour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon, wrote in a research note.

Although Trump agreed to put the 25% tariff rates in Canada and Mexico this week, they can still take effect early next month. And Trump has beaten a 10% duty on all Chinese imports.

Both import fees and Trump’s plans to deport millions of immigrants missing permanently legal status – an initiative that has already begun – is likely to reintroduce inflation and inhibit economic growth, economists say.

Trump’s policy – combined with a labor market that is crippling after a post -pandemic increase – is likely to slowly average monthly job gains to about 100,000 by the end of the year, Moody’s analysis estimates.

At the same time, Trump’s plans to loosen the rules on companies and expand and expand his tax cuts in 2017 canceled small businesses optimism and is likely to increase the economy, prognosis said.

(This story was updated to add new information.)