Labor market off to a strong start in 2023: 517,000 jobs added in January as unemployment rate hits historic low
Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 517,000 jobs added in January, the unemployment rate hitting a historic low of 3.4%, and wage growth slowing.
From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):
Read the full Twitter thread here.
The labor market is off to a strong start this year with 517,000 jobs added in January, an unemployment rate at a historic low of 3.4%, and wage growth that continues to decelerate, slowing down to 3.7% at an annualized rate (down to 4.4% growth over the last year).
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) February 3, 2023
Message to the Fed: Wage growth continues to decelerate no matter how it’s measured. These trends are not driving inflation. pic.twitter.com/94jmSRCWvR
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) February 3, 2023
Not only was job growth in January stronger than anticipated, the revisions were larger as well. After benchmarking against UI records, total payroll employment for March 2022 was revised up by 568k jobs. Total establishment survey revisions increased December 2022 jobs by 813k! pic.twitter.com/hqk3KyytlH
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) February 3, 2023
From EPI president, Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz):
Read the full Twitter thread here.
Important note! I wouldn’t normally be happy that wage growth is slowing, but the thing here is that *inflation is slowing much faster than wage growth is slowing.* That means real wages are rising, which is great news (this wasn’t happening in ’21 or the first half of ’22). 2/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 3, 2023
Folks, over the period of slowing nominal wage growth of the last 10 months, the labor market has added 365,000 jobs per month on avg, and the unemployment rate is down to 50-year lows. It looks like the economy can have a soft landing, if the Fed doesn’t stand in the way. 4/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 3, 2023
State and local governments have gained back less than 2/3rds of what they lost in the spring of 2022.
The gap in state & local jobs is a crisis, BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE. State & local governments can and must use their ARPA funds to raise pay and refill those jobs. 8/— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 3, 2023
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