The pickup in hiring lowered the unemployment rate from 6.3% to 6.2%, the Labor Department said Friday in its monthly jobs report. That is down dramatically from the 14.8% jobless rate of April of last year, just after the virus erupted in the United States.
Economists have forecast that job growth reached 175,000 last month, according to data provider FactSet. That would mark a sharp improvement over an average of just 29,000 jobs a month from November through January.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested Thursday that inflation will pick up in the coming months but the rise would likely prove temporary and not enough for the Fed to alter its record-low interest rate policies.
The revised figure released by the Labor Department on Thursday was slightly smaller than the 4.7% decline estimated a month ago. But it was still the biggest drop since the second quarter of 1981.
Reports on consumer spending and auto sales were mixed, while overall manufacturing showed moderate gains despite supply-side constraints, according to the Fed survey.
Friday’s report from the Commerce Department also showed that personal incomes, which provide the fuel for spending, jumped 10% last month, boosted by cash payments most Americans received from the government.
The 4.1% gain in the gross domestic product—the broadest measure of economic health—is a slight upward revision from 4% growth in the first estimate released a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
Last week’s decline in applications was broad-based, with 36 states (including Indiana) and the District of Columbia reporting fewer people seeking unemployment benefits. That suggests that employers might be cutting fewer jobs.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments were in contrast to the increasing optimism among many analysts that the economy will grow rapidly later this year. That outlook has also raised concerns, though, about a potential surge in inflation.
The Federal Reserve says there’s evidence that hiring has picked up in recent weeks, although the job market remains badly damaged by the pandemic.
Congress could refine, update and modify current immigration rules to allow for clearer paths to legal immigration while simultaneously securing our borders.
As a result, the report argues, the state is not as well-positioned as it might be to rebound from economic downturns.
Women, minorities, the young and the less educated will probably be the hardest hit by what consultant firm McKinsey & Co. foresees in a new report as an unprecedented hollowing out of low-wage work in retail, hospitality and other industries.
Indiana’s economy should start to recover this year from the damage of COVID-19, but the economy likely won’t fully rebound until late 2022 or early 2023, a Ball State University economist says.
Elevated unemployment, limited social activity because of COVID-19 and a slow pace of vaccinations are depressing sentiment
For workers at GM and other automakers, the future could be perilous. The more environmentally focused plants of the future will need significantly fewer workers, mainly because electric vehicles contain 30% to 40% fewer moving parts than petroleum-run vehicles.
The Brookings Institution report, “Indiana GPS: Strategies for Resilience,” identifies job growth, wages and technology as areas for improvement in the state’s economy.
Energy costs jumped 3.5%, led by a 7.4% surge in gasoline. Even with the spike, gasoline prices are 8.7% below where they were a year ago.
The January figures from the Labor Department reflect a faltering job market, slowed by a pandemic that is still causing consumers to avoid traveling, shopping, dining out, attending entertainment venues and engaging in other forms of face-to-face contact.
Last month’s gain came as a surprise to economists who had been looking for a slight decline given that the country was battling a severe resurgence of virus cases in January.
