For the first time in over four years, the U.S. economy has lost jobs, ending down for nonfarm payrolls by 17,000 in January. When considering some thought there was going to be an increase of 85,000 jobs, that's a little over a 100,000 less than expected. The last job drop was in August 2003.
The only sectors that added jobs were the leisure, education and health. Manufacturing continues it loss of jobs, as they declined by 28,000, the 19th month in a row that factories had lost jobs. In health care, total job additions were 27,000, while retail added another 11,000. The retail surprised me a little, as usually cutbacks are the norm for January, right after the Christmas season.
Construction also continued to shed jobs, as employment dropped by 27,000, which makes it the seventh straight month they've declined for the industry.
Jobs related to the finance category also continued to drop, although it slowed down, as 2,000 jobs were lost in January. Jobs connected to real estate decreased by 5,000 for the month as well.
Oddly enough, jobs in the government fell by 18,000, which was the reason the decline went into negative territory, or else there would have been a tiny 1,000 jobs added. That means the private sector about broke even for the month.
As far as wages go, January found an increase of 0.2 percent, or 4 cents an hour, growing to $17.75. For last year wages grew by 3.7 percent.
Hours worked for a week stayed about the same, although dropping by six minutes, to finish at 33.7 hours.
At this time, all this does is confirm what most of us already knew, that the first couple quarters of the year will probably remain sluggish. Businesses are shown to be responding by tightening up their expenses in anticipation of those slow months.
Sponsored link: The outsourcing every manager requires - Tampa Locksmith
Comment Preview