U.S. employers added back far more jobs than expected in January even as Omicron cases surged at the beginning of the new year.
The Labor Department released its January jobs report Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics from the print, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Non-farm payrolls: +467,000 vs. +125,000 expected and a revised +510,000 in December
- Unemployment rate: 4.0% vs. 3.9% expected, 3.9% in December
- Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: 0.7% vs. 0.5% expected and a revised 0.5% in December
- Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: 5.7% vs. 5.2% expected, 4.7% in December
The January jobs report marks the first to reflect a fuller impact from the Omicron variant. The highly contagious variant first discovered in the U.S. in late November had only just begun to spread by the time of the December jobs report survey period. Around the time of the January survey period in the middle of the month, new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. had soared to a record.
Still, job growth held up much more robustly than expected at the start of the year. Plus, payrolls gains for December were sharply upwardly revised, further pointing to momentum in the labor market heading into the new year. Non-farm payrolls grew by 510,000 in December, the Labor Department said in its revision on Friday, or well above the 199,000 previously reported last month.
And the renewed jump in COVID-19 cases was expected to weigh especially heavily on the high-contact services sector, which has remained exceptionally vulnerable to rising infections levels. Yet job growth in leisure and hospitality industries remained positive for January, with payrolls rising by 151,000 compared to the 163,000 brought back in December. Retail trade payrolls accelerated to see a rise of more than 60,000 jobs in January from the 40,100 in December.
Heading into Friday’s report, estimates for the headline January print on non-farm payrolls ran the gamut as top Wall Street…