The US economy added 130,000 jobs in January, crushing expectations of 55,000.
The unemployment rate FELL to 4.3%, below expectations of 4.4%.
This was a much stronger than expected jobs report, all around the board.
The Fed pause will continue.
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Everything declining except health and education is pretty concerning. I mentioned in #1370195 how health is like maintenance/repair, and that this means we're just spending a lot of money in maintenance/repair.
(Not to mention how health/education are sectors so heavily influenced by government, that this doesn't actually look like a shrink of the public sector, to me. It just means we've reduced the number of people directly employed by the government, but not necessarily the number of people who are indirectly supported through government funds)
Are you telling me they didn't all go work at Liberty University?
Yes, you're right that the other sectors are not very encouraging. Do you have any idea what kinds of jobs account for that huge pink bar?
I have an inkling but not hard data. I think a lot of it is support staff like home health aides, nursing and physician assistant roles, and various kinds of therapists.
These come from my own observations as someone who interacts with a lot of college students and sees the kinds of careers they head into (including outside my formal duties, since there are a lot of college students at my church). I'd say more than a third of them are going into some type of healthcare field
If that's right, then I think gaining those kinds of jobs in exchange for government bureaucrats is a huge gain for society.
Yes, perhaps. But I don't think it signals economic health either. It may signal an over-diagnosed, over-medicalized, and generally physically unhealthy society. Not to mention, it's within a sector with heavy heavy misallocation of resources due to government being the biggest funder.
No disagreement there.
Fed pause will continue until the new chairman is sworn in.
That government bar is a thing of beauty
#1431675
I wonder which job industries will continue to hold strong moving forward? What does this mean for everyone else who aren’t in these industries?
This latest jobs report is notable not so much for the headline number but for what it signals about the current trajectory of the labor market. Adding 130,000 jobs is a remarkable turnaround from the sluggish gains seen in late 2024. The real driver here is health care which alone accounted for well over half the total gains. When a single sector dominates growth it raises the question of sustainability but it also speaks to demographic and societal trends that create structural demand regardless of broader economic conditions.
The construction gains are also worth watching as they often represent confidence in future investment and development. Meanwhile the significant drop in federal government employment will be praised by those who believe in reducing the public payroll but it also means there is a shift underway in the composition of the workforce from government-driven to private sector-driven jobs.