The American economy created far more jobs than expected in January even as the economy was gripped by a surge in new Covid-19 infections.
U.S. employers added 467,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate ticked up to four percent, one-tenth of a point higher than December.
Economists had expected the economy to add 150,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to hold at last month’s 3.9 percent. The range of forecasts by economists surveyed by Econoday was between a loss of 400,000 jobs to a gain of 280,000, so the January figures were beyond even the most bullish forecasts.
The better than expected jobs figure suggested that U.S. businesses kept hiring despite a slowdown in economic activity and many hourly wage workers not working while infected with the omicron variant or quarantined after exposure to someone who tested positive.
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