America's jobs recovery got an unexpected boost in January despite the Omicron variant spreading rapidly throughout the country.
The economy added 467,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, significantly better than most economists had expected.
Restaurants and bars added more than 100,000 jobs. Logistics and business services jobs also increased.
Once again economists got it totally wrong. It's a reminder that there are a lot of moving parts in the pandemic economy, making it hard for economic models to keep up with a situation that's so in flux.
The report blew expectations out of the water. The consensus forecast had been for only 150,000 jobs. Plenty of economists even expected job losses, warning that business closures and worker absenteeism in jobs without sick leave could lead to people being counted as unemployed. A similar dynamic played out last winter, when rising infections temporarily weighed on the jobs recovery in December 2020.
On top of that, America is still in midst of a labour shortage. As of December, the nation had 10.9 million open jobs.
Even so, the Omicron variant left its mark on American workers last month. The number of people working remotely because of the virus increased to 15.4%, for example. A total of 6 million people said they worked fewer hours or not at all because of their employer closing or losing business because of the pandemic. The number of people jobless for less than five week also increased.
The average number of hours worked also declined, "showing that the impact of the pandemic is still here as more workers had to cut hours due to illness, quarantine, or family obligations," said Glassdoor Senior Economist Daniel Zhao.
The unemployment rate inched up to 4%, the first increase in the jobless rate since June 2021.
Recovery on track
Despite all that, the January report hammered home that the jobs recovery is still on track.
For President Joe Biden, it makes for a nice report card: The economy added 6.6 million jobs during his first 12 months in office, making it the best first year for a president ever.
Meanwhile, data revisions from the BLS showed that the winter jobs gains were much stronger than previously expected: Between November and December, the number of positions added was more than 700,000 jobs higher than initially reported. Similarly, jobs gains were stronger in January and February 2021 as well.
But over the summer, the revisions did the opposite. The employment change for June and July was more than 800,000 positions lower than previously reported.
SOURCE: CNN
IMAGE SOURCE: Pixabay
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