The US economy added nearly half a million new jobs in January, as the country appears to shake off economic slumps created by the Omicron variant.
It comes as a welcome surprise to the U.S. Department of Labor, which feared there would be a dramatic slump in jobs growth due to Covid. The data for the report was collected in mid-January, which is when the highly transmissible Omicron variant reached its peak in the U.S.
The number of added jobs was far better than some economists, as well as the White House itself, expected.
Economists had estimated that 150,000 jobs were going to be added in the month, and some predicted there would be a decline. So the addition of 467,000 jobs, a booming number, was an unexpected twist.
Unemployment remained at an overall low rate at 4 percent, which is down from the pandemic high in April 2020 at 14.8 percent.
The news comes at a sensitive moment for the U.S. Federal Reserve. The economy continues to wrestle with soaring inflation rates, and overall broader signs of a slowing economy after a year made up of a strong rebound.
In a highly unusual move, the White House this week aimed to manage national expectations before the jobs figures were released. Officials warned that the report could be “confusing” due to the timing of the survey occurring in the peak of Omicron. Since the report was compiled, Covid infection rates have fallen across the U.S.
The official jobs report comes on the back of a survey conducted by the largest private payroll supplier in the U.S., ADP. ADP reported that companies cut jobs in January for the first time in over a year and that payrolls fell by 301,000 in the month of January.
ADP’s chief economist Nela Richardson said that the Omicron variant forced the labor market recovery to take a step back at the beginning of 2022.
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