January U.S. nonfarm payrolls miss expectations

Nonfarm payrolls increased by only 113,000 in January, compared with an average of 194,000 per month in 2013 and The Wall Street consensus expectations of 180,000, according to the report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. December’s disappointing payroll number was revised up only to 75,000 from 74,000, leaving the U.S. with consecutive ugly...

Nonfarm payrolls increased by only 113,000 in January, compared with an average of 194,000 per month in 2013 and The Wall Street consensus expectations of 180,000, according to the report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. December’s disappointing payroll number was revised up only to 75,000 from 74,000, leaving the U.S. with consecutive ugly jobs reports.

On a three-month average, the U.S. is only producing 143,000 jobs per month, putting the country on pace to close the “jobs gap” by the middle of 2022. The jobs gap is “the number of jobs that the U.S. needs to create in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while absorbing the people who enter the labor force each month.”

Jobs gap not closing quickly

Source: hamiltonproject.org

The national unemployment rate declined to 6.6 percent in January, down from 6.7 percent a month earlier. The number of unemployed Americans fell by 115,000 while both the number of employed and the labor force grew month over month.

January’s report, in combination with December’s release, shows a slowing recovery. More than 10.2 million Americans are still unemployed, with 3.6 million being unemployed long term, meaning they have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

The unemployment rate has gradually subsided since the Great Recession, with the largest portion of the decline coming from long-term unemployed Americans leaving the labor force.