Many have said that the math from the US Labor Department is fuzzy, and today will only show further conversations of that notion. Despite the negative recent news in weekly jobless claims, the unemployment rate came in 9.7%… Bloomberg and Dow Jones were at 10.1% for expectations. The change in non-Farm payrolls was -20,000 versus expectations of a flat number.
The figures were boosted by what is described as temporary hiring. The rate of the under-employed also fell to 16.5% from 17.3%. The losses were in construction, transportation and warehouse jobs, and the gains were in retail and temporary help services.
The average hourly earnings rose to $18.89 from $18.84 a month earlier, while the average workweek was up 0.1 hour to 33.3 hours in January.
The annual revisions, which take place each February of each year,show that job losses were almost 600,000 more than what had been previously reported in 2009.
A drop shows a continued ‘opting out of the workforce’ in the numbers…. something we’ll be reviewing further.
JON C. OGG
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