A stellar jobs report!
The only caveat is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics incorporates some annual revisions into the January report. That might make some data more difficult to compare to prior periods than normal.
The household survey produced 894,000 jobs. Combined with last month's 717,000 that gets us to 1.6 million jobs in two months. This closes the gap between the Household and the Establishment.
The Establishment number at 517,000 with 71,000 of upward revisions is no slouch in its own right.
Weekly hours worked of 34.7 saw a nice bounce and is as high as it was at any time in 2022.
That should be high enough to create new jobs and turn part-time into full-time. It is also potentially inflationary.
An unemployment rate of 3.4% is the lowest going back to at least 1960!
Given the strength of the data, the one thing that seemed "weird" to me was the underemployment rate ticked up, but that's probably just an anomaly.
Average hourly earnings were revised higher last month to 0.4% and came in at 0.3% which seems "tame" relative to the rest of the report.
I don't fully know the impact of the revisions. I haven't seen data on the survey response rate (which has been low). I didn't see the birth/death model either (which is often questioned).
Anyone at the Fed worried at all about job and wage-driven inflation will have to talk hawkish in the coming weeks.
These numbers seem at odds with so much on the earnings front, earnings calls, etc., but it is highly visible data the Fed will feel compelled to respond to.
