Jobs report

The February jobs report had something for everyone: encouraging developments for American workers and the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting efforts.

- That more workers are returning to the job market is good news, because it could help bring the labor market back into balance in a less painful manner. Some details point to a job market still bursting at the seams, alongside others that suggest inflationary pressures are diminishing. The bottom line: More job reports like the one in February could mean a more gradual labor market cooling that would be less painful for American workers. What they're saying: "If you have a labor market that is showing less tightness on the labor force participation front, that will tend — all else equal — to put downward pressure on wage growth," Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, tells Axios. - Notably, the labor force participation rate for prime-age workers (those between 25 and 54) is back at its pre-pandemic level of 83.1%. Meanwhile, a surge of workers (roughly 270,000) re-entered the labor force last month, helping push up the unemployment rate slightly to 3.6%.

Labor Dept: U.S. employers added 311000 jobs in February as hiring slowed after booming gains the prior month, jobs report shows. Unemployment rose to 3.6%.

Generally, payroll growth is expected to dial back substantially this year after the U.S. And inflation and higher Fed interest rates are also expected to curtail employment gains. Now, however, the nation has recovered all 22 million jobs wiped out in the health crisis. The participation rate for workers in their prime working years -- 25-54 -- jumped to 83.1, finally returning to its pre-crisis mark. Nancy Vanden Houten of Oxford Economics said January’s torrid job growth was amplified by unusually warm weather, especially in industries such as restaurants, hotels and construction. But the rise was less than expected and broadly underscores a slowing in last year's above-5% yearly wage growth. Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics said the jobs report, from the Fed's perspective, was mixed and its decision will hinge on Tuesday's inflation report. Although favorable weather boosted employment in February as well, it likely wasn’t a big factor, she says. economist of Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients. In a positive development that could ease wage pressures, the share of adults working or looking for a job edged up to 62.5%. His remarks triggered this week’s stock market sell-off and stoked fears that the aggressive rate increases could trigger a recession this year. The Fed meets March 21-22.

Nonfarm payrolls were expected to increase by 225000 in February, while the unemployment rate was projected to hold at 3.4%, according to Dow Jones.

Correction: The unemployment rate rose to 3.6%, above the expectation for 3.4%. That happened in February, when the Federal Open Market Committee approved a 0.25 percentage point increase and indicated that smaller hikes would be the case going forward. "We're still in a recession for certain parts of the economy." Though Powell emphasized that no decision has been made for the March FOMC meeting, markets recoiled at his comments. Powell specifically noted the "extremely tight" labor market as a reason why rates are likely to continue rising and stay elevated. The year opened with a nonfarm payrolls gain of 504,000, a total that was revised down only slightly from the initially reported 517,000. Nonetheless, 50 basis points is still on the table for the March policy meeting, given recent economic strength and dependent on next week's [consumer price index] report." "A drop in the largest costs for businesses is a welcome development. There also was some good news on the inflation side, as average hourly earnings climbed 4.6% from a year ago, below the estimate for 4.8%. December's total also was taken down slightly, to 239,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous estimate. A more encompassing unemployment measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons rose to 6.8%, an increase of 0.2 percentage point. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 311,000 for the month, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Recent growth in the labor force participation rate shows that continued recovery is possible,” said Betsey Stevenson, economist at the University of Michigan's ...

At the beginning of the pandemic women lost more jobs than men both because the industries they are most likely to work in lost the most jobs and they lost the most jobs in any given industry. Women have been gaining jobs in construction at three times their share of the industry. Similarly, women have been gaining jobs in manufacturing at almost two times their share of the industry. This research highlights the fact that in most families with kids, all parents are attempting to work and a lack of child care can create employment problems for men and women. Since then, more women have been hired back than men, but the shares of women in these occupations remain lower than prior to the pandemic. While both men and women have yet to return to their pre-pandemic labor force participation rates, women have narrowed the gap more. Male job growth slowed much more than job growth for women in the third year, with 165,000 jobs held by men added per month. The labor force participation rate of white adults rose from 61.8% to 62.1%, but their labor force participation rate remains slightly below the post-pandemic high reached in March 2022 and equal to the rate a year ago. The labor force participation rate of Hispanic adults increased from 65.7% in November 2022 to 66.8%in February and it rose from 62.3% to 63.4% among Black adults. The labor force participation rate among white workers remains more than a percentage point below its pre-pandemic rate. Unemployment ticked up to 3.6%, while the number of employed expanded and the labor force participation rate also ticked up. The answer depends on whether you think we can recover from the negative labor supply shock that was the pandemic and return to pre-pandemic labor force participation rates.

The February jobs report was a bit of a mixed bag with the unemployment rate rising even as the economy added more jobs last month than economists had ...

The United Nations [pointed this out in a report last year](http://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/tdr2022_en.pdf), attributing inflation to “price-setting firms in highly concentrated markets raising their mark-ups.” Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned Powell during the meeting of the Senate Banking Committee. This is important for the Federal Reserve as it weighs further interest rate hikes, which slow down the economy in order to combat inflation. Transportation and warehousing jobs dropped by 22,000, including 9,000 in truck transport. Higher labor force participation means higher unemployment could largely be a reflection of more people feeling encouraged to look for jobs. “Over the past year, we’ve taken forceful actions to tighten the stance of monetary policy. Jobs in the information technology sector decreased by 25,000. Even so, we have more work to do,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during a Senate hearing Tuesday. The economy added 311,000 jobs while analysts were expecting a monthly increase of only 225,000. “The report suggests U.S. That means the uptick in unemployment seen in Friday’s job report, which is the largest move in the metric since October of last year, could be the start of a larger acceleration. The Fed has jacked up interest rates eight times in a row over the last year, and the full force of those hikes has yet to be felt throughout the economy.

Job growth stayed too hot for the Fed in February, as employers added 311,000 payroll positions. Yet the unemployment rate rose more than expected and wage ...

That is the lesson of 15-year bout of high inflation that lasted from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Powell has said. Underlying details in the jobs report, from a shorter workweek to a narrower breadth of hiring and tepid wage gains show the job market is getting softer. The longer this bout of high inflation lasts, the harder it may be to quell it. But following the jobs report, those odds of a A diffusion index of 50 means an equal balance between the number of industries increasing and decreasing employment. The headline job and wage figures come from the Labor Department's monthly survey of employers. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted that wage growth over the past three months has slowed to an annualized 3.6% rate. The S&P 500 initially climbed after the jobs report as odds of a half-point Fed rate hike fell, but markets then swung lower in volatile Friday stock market action.X January's stunning gain of 517,000 jobs, which along with hot inflation and retail sales in the month had shocked the Fed, was revised only slightly to 504,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield fell 20 basis points to 3.72%. However, signs of financial fragility also may be contributing to a safety bid for Treasuries. The labor force participation rate, which includes those working or actively seeking work, ticked up to 62.5%.

The economy added 311000 jobs in February despite higher interest rates. But hourly earnings rose more slowly as the pool of available workers grew.

“The big upshot is that it lowers the chances of a soft landing a little bit,” said Brad Hershbein, a senior economist at the W.E. Earlier this week, the Fed had been expected to stick to a slower course on interest rate increases, moving in increments of one-quarter of a percentage point. “Working for the state will let me do that in a way that unfortunately that other position, which I really loved, wasn’t going to enable me to do.” The measure increased on a month-over-month basis in January after several months of cooling, raising fears of a fresh acceleration in price growth. “That practice has eroded most of the profits, and we are barely breaking even.” That has powered a turnaround in retail spending and moved economists’ projections of an impending recession further into the future — if it happens at all. At any other time, raising the key bank lending rate from zero to an average of 4.5 percent in less than a year might have prompted widespread layoffs, as capital becomes more expensive and business expansions suddenly no longer pencil out. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys. Wages grew 0.2 percent from January to February, a continued deceleration and the smallest increase since February 2022. The rate for those in their prime working years — ages 25 to 54 — jumped to 83.1 percent, finally exceeding its prepandemic level. “Today’s jobs numbers are clear: Our economy is moving in the right direction,” he declared. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.6 percent, from 3.4 percent in January, which was the lowest level since 1969.

Fed officials could debate whether to raise rates by a quarter- or half-percentage-point at their next meeting.

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Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami explains we can still get a big jobs number while the unemployment rate increased.

recovery would happen in 2020 and [I retired it](https://loganmohtashami.com/2020/12/09/america-is-back-the-final-economic-update/)on Dec. This has been a crazy week — one for the record books for sure. With recent headlines, it’s not a surprise to see jobs being lost in the information and warehousing sectors. Below is a breakdown of the jobs gained and lost with Friday’s report. Even in 2021, when job reports were missed badly, [I doubled down](https://loganmohtashami.com/2021/05/07/jobs-report-whiffs-but/)on my premise. [COVID-19 recovery model](https://www.housingwire.com/articles/5-indicators-that-will-show-when-the-housing-market-is-rebounding-from-covid-19/)was written on April 7, 2020. [Housing Market Tracker](https://www.housingwire.com/housing-market/) article already know I have discussed critical technical levels on the 10-year yield on the bottom-end range and where we were this week. [news](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/investing/svb-bank/index.html) that Silicon Valley Bank failed has to have shocked Mary Daly, president and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco since this happened in her district. According to the Fed, Americans are getting too much wage growth, and labor has power over their bosses — this will not be tolerated in America. How can the unemployment rate increase and we still have big job numbers printed? [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf):Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 311,000 in February, and the unemployment rate edged up to 3.6 percent, the U.S. Read the statement by the FDIC about taking over the bank [here](https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2023/pr23016.html).