Economic Watch: Job Growth Continues as Manufacturing Improves
New figures show employers in the U.S. continue to add people to their payrolls at a healthy pace. And there is mounting evidence that the nation’s manufacturing sector is coming out of the doldrums as businesses increase their investment in capital goods.
Employment in the U.S. continued along its path of gains last month, with a Labor Department report released Friday showing 227,000 nonfarm jobs were added in January. The number of jobs added during the month is the highest since September. Trucking, however, trimmed its employment rolls.
The number of overall job additions was far more than the 175,000 forecast by a poll of analysts. At the same time, the unemployment rate inched up to 4.8% as more people began looking for work.
As for trucking there were 1,400 job losses last month in the for-hire sector, contributing to an overall 4,000-job loss in the wider transportation and warehousing sector. However, unlike trucking, the warehousing and storage niche added 9,400 jobs during the month, while 7,400 jobs were cut from the couriers and messengers category.
Outside of transportation, the overall gain largely reflected construction employment soaring 36,000 after a 2,000 gain in December, while manufacturing employment rose a modest 5,000 compared to the 11,000 gain the previous month.
Overall wage growth in January moderated to an average of 3 cents per hour compared to double that number in December. However, over the past 12 months average wages are up 2.5%, only slightly higher than the level of retail inflation, and down from the December 12-month rate of a 2.8% increase.
“Today’s report indicates continued robust increases in employment going into 2017,” said Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at RBC Economics. “Such bodes well for overall gross domestic product growth to continue at an above-potential rate as prevailed over the second half of 2016.”
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