Economy Adds Only 36,000 Jobs in January

Posted Feb 4th 2011 5:20PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Economic Data, Federal Reserve

The jobs number is disappointing at best. Only 36,000 jobs were added in January, according to the Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones news wires had forecast an increase of 136,000. The unemployment rate fell to 9%.

The key reason for such a poor showing was bad weather. However, the December number was increased to 121,000 jobs, from 103,000.

Commenting on the jobs situation, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said: "Until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established."

The report showed that 13.86 million people who would like to work can't get a job. The government also revised downward March 2010 payrolls to 378,000.

Here is a breakdown of specific categories:

Government employment dropped by 14,000. The number of municipal jobs declined sharply.
43.8% of unemployed , or 6.2 million people were out of work for more than six months.
Manufacturing added 49,000 jobs.
Private sector employers added 50,000 jobs.
Hourly earnings increased 8 cents to $22.86.
The average workweek fell to 34.2 hours for all private sector jobs.

It looks like January was a washout. With weather improving, next month's numbers should be much improved. As chairman Bernanke said, we still don't have a recovery.

Tags: hourly earnings, inthenews, public sector, unemployment private sector, unemployment rate, workweek

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-05-2011 @ 7:53AM

Hector said...

Lies and more Lies. Part Time temporary jobs are not additions to permanent job counts. Also unemployment rates are all the unemployed not just those collecting unemployment before they run out and then not counted as unemployed persons. You cannot borrow over one trillion dollars the nation does not have and then claim that such will make any ecomony prosper of stimulate such economy. That is just another lie to cover with make up the financial collapse of the nation that is in massive debt to the point of no return from such debt.

2-05-2011 @ 7:38PM

william lindblad said...

I have a sure fire and easy way to lower the unemployment rate.

Put a finite term on the unemployment payouts just as is the case of the "99 er's". When they are not collecting - they are not counted. Siince we use a similar formula to gage inflation - so why not? I guess we could also de-value the dollar and pay our indebtitures at a deep discount.

Where there is a will there is a way and I would not put anything past our government.