U. S. economy creating jobs at record high rate
2023.03.11 02:54
U. S. economy creating jobs at record high rate
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – According to the most recent monthly employment snapshot released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy added 311,000 jobs in February.
That is a decrease from the record-breaking January jobs report, in which a revised 504,000 jobs were added. However, it demonstrates that the labor market is still radiating a great deal of heat.
From 3.4%, the unemployment rate increased to 3.6%.
February’s net work acquires outperformed financial specialists’ evaluations for a more humble month, with simply 205,000 to be added. Separately, the totals for December and January were not significantly revised down.
Gus Faucher, chief economist for PNC Financial Services, stated that despite Friday’s strong report, that is actually bad news in the larger context of the Federal Reserve’s campaign to reduce high inflation.
He stated, “It’s much hotter than the economy can run, and this means the Fed will have to continue raising interest rates.” As a result, a recession is more likely.
Faucher stated that he expects the Fed to proceed with a half-point rate hike at its March 21-22 meeting—a faster rate than the recent, more moderate quarter-point increase—unless the Consumer Price Index inflation report comes in surprisingly low next week.
The labor market continues to defy the efforts of the Federal Reserve, which has been attempting for nearly a year to slow the economy and contain the highest inflation in 40 years.
Chris Rupkey, chief economist of FwdBonds, said in a statement, “We never thought we would see the economy churning out 311,000 more jobs this month, coming up on the one-year anniversary of the Fed’s first rate hike.” The labor market is having a great time and the party is starting. It is evident that the economy is soaring rather than landing.
According to BLS data, the number of new jobs created each month between 2010 and 2019 was approximately 180,000, which was significantly higher than the average prior to the pandemic. However, the labor market is still tight, and the ongoing efforts to recover from the devastating pandemic are still marred by imbalances.
Earlier this week, data on labor turnover for January showed that for every person looking for a job, there were 1.9 open positions. Jerome Powell, chair of the Fed, has frequently emphasized how the labor market is still below the 3 million people who were projected to be employed before the pandemic.
The pandemic accelerated anticipated demographic trends, which included an increase in retirements and the aging out of the massive Baby Boom generation; individuals likewise exited the labor force for care-related necessities and wellbeing concerns, for example, long Coronavirus; Additionally, Covid caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of workers.
The labor force participation rate increased by 0.1 percentage point in February to 62.5 percent, the highest level since April 2020, according to the employment report. However, it is still below the levels of 63.4% seen prior to the pandemic.
In addition, there was a slight uptick in the unemployment rate, which rose by 0.2 percentage points to 3.6%.
Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, stated, “There were more people looking for work, contributing to upward pressure here.”
Retail trade, government, leisure and hospitality, and health care were among the industries with significant job gains. The leisure and hospitality industry has been steadily adding back employees since the pandemic, attempting to meet increased demand from customers shifting their spending from goods to services.
As the Federal Reserve examines the impact of rising wages on inflation, average hourly earnings increased by 4.6% over the previous year and increased by 0.2% month-over-month.
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