Senior Economist at UOB Group’s Global Economics & Markets Research Alvin Liew reviews Friday’s release of the Nonfarm Payrolls for the month of January.
Key Quotes
“The US economy returned to jobs increase in January although it was hardly a roaring start to the New Year. US nonfarm payrolls (NFP) rose by just 49,000 (NFP) jobs in Jan, in line with the Bloomberg median estimate for an already low 50,000 job creation. Notably, the number of jobs lost in December was revised significantly higher to -227,000 (from the previous estimate of -140,000). The latest NFP number was well below the private sector ADP print of 174,000 jobs increase reported during mid-week (3 Feb).”
“Despite the weak jobs rebound, the unemployment rate eased further to 6.3% in Jan (from 6.7% in Dec) even though the fall in participation rate was just to 61.4% (from 61.5% in Dec).”
“Even as the US economy managed to etch out 49,000 new jobs (including 43,000 government jobs – implying just 6,000 private sector jobs in Jan), the weak number masks the reality that several important sectors continued to lose jobs amidst the worsening pandemic and tighter restrictions.”
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