Natalie Sherman
Business Reporter, BBC News
Getty images
In the United States, job growth slowed down last month, but unemployment remained weak, as a sign of a solid, but more moderate economy.
Employers added 143,000 jobs in January, while the unemployment rate increased to 4% against 4.1%, according to the Report of the Labor.
The figures have prepared the land while the American president Donald Trump enters the White House promising a major upheaval, including the reductions in public spending and the federal workforce, the deportations of mass migrants and the higher prices On many goods in the United States.
The proposals have raised uncertainty about the future path for the greatest economy in the world.
Last month, the American central bank quoted questions about the future because it announced that it would not reduce interest rates, hitting a break after a series of discounts that had started in September.
The president of the federal reserve, Jerome Powell, also said that the concerns of the bank concerning the labor market had calmed down.
Despite the slowdown in job growth last month, analysts said they did not see much in the report to arouse new concerns, noting the revisions of previous data indicating that employment growth in November And December was stronger than expected.
“A pay number lower than on January was more than compensated by the upward revisions of the total of November and December and a drop in the unemployment rate,” said Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
“Those who had hoped for a mild ratio that would push the mode of rate reduction did not get it.”
Employers in the health and retail sectors led the gains in January, which came when the country was affected by forest fires and winter storms.
The average hourly wages increased by 4.1%compared to January 2023, according to the report.
The report was allocated by annual revisions, which incorporate more detailed data on employment growth.
They showed fewer employment gains in 2024 overall than before. American actions have changed little after the news.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that the report showed “that Biden’s economy was much worse than anyone who did not think so and underlines the need for President Trump’s pro-growth policies.”
Despite the revisions, the last report suggested that the job market is more stable than it was a few months ago, said Samuel Tombs, chief economist of the United States for Pantheon Macroeconomics, who declared that ‘He no longer expected the Fed to reduce rates in March.
“All in all, the economy created fewer jobs than we thought before last year, but the trend no longer seems to deteriorate,” he said.
He warned that the company was still expecting a “relapse” in job growth “given the level of non-indictment of hiring and a high uncertainty about the economic policies of the new administration”.
