While job cuts at big-name companies like Amazon and Citigroup have made headlines, they’ve largely been contained to technology, finance and housing.The payrolls figure topped all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, which called for a 225,000 increase and for wages to rise 0.3 per cent from the prior month.
Average hourly earnings climbed 0.2 per cent from a month earlier and 4.6 per cent from a year ago. That said, wages for production and non-supervisory workers — which make up the majority of US workers and aren’t in management positions — advanced 0.5 per cent, the biggest gain in three months and primarily driven by service industries.
Employers are also reticent to dismiss the staff they’ve struggled to attract and retain, helping to keep unemployment near historically low levels and giving many Americans the wherewithal to keep spending.Powell has said a move to a faster pace would be based on the “totality of the data”, which also includes next week’s inflation reports. The mixed news from the jobs report will likely put even more emphasis on the consumer price index out Tuesday ahead of the Fed’s March 21-22 meeting.
The job gains were led by leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government and health care. Employers shed jobs in information — which includes many tech jobs — as well as transportation and warehousing.