A surprisingly strong jobs report for January came out today.
Maybe the US economy will have a soft landing after all —a short and shallow recession this year. (Or none? There is going to be a recession at some point in the future, we know that. That’s just the way the economy works).
From the Wall Street Journal:
January’s seasonally adjusted payroll gains were the largest since July 2022 and snapped a string of five straight months of slowing employment growth, the Labor Department said Friday. December job growth was also stronger than previously estimated, pushing the average job gains for the last three months to 356,000, well above the 2019 prepandemic average of 163,000.
Payrolls grew most strongly at services businesses, the Labor Department said. Leisure and hospitality industries added 128,000 workers in January, up from 64,000 in December.
