CURRENT LABOR INDICATORS
- Total Unemployment: 8.3%
- College Educated Unemployment: 4.2%
- Total Job Loss/Gain: +243,000
- Temporary Penetration Rate: 1.8%
VERY GOOD JANUARY JOBS REPORT
Unlike previous jobs reports, where earnings weren’t growing or all the job gains were in low-paying jobs, the January Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data is solid. Job growth was widespread in the private sector, with large employment gains in professional and business services.
The headline numbers showed 243,000 jobs created and 257,000 new private sector jobs. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised from an increase of 100,000 to 157,000 and the change for December was revised from an increase of 200,000 to 203,000. Professional and business services continued to add jobs in January (+70,000). About half of the increase occurred in employment services (+33,000). Job gains also occurred in accounting and bookkeeping (+13,000) and in architectural and engineering services (+7,000).
The official unemployment rate fell to 8.3% from 8.5%. The household survey showed even more good news. It’s a smaller sample size than the establishment survey, so it has a large margin of error. But it showed that there were 847,000 more people working than in the prior month. Of note, is that about a quarter of this job growth was in the category of the self-employed, which may mean that some unemployed are finding freelance work and classifying themselves as self-employed. This is interesting as it lends credence to the trend of more of the workforce being engaged on a project basis versus a more traditional employment model.
HEARD FROM THE FIELD
"36 percent of the finance and accounting candidates we met with during Q4 are now off the market…skilled candidates are in high demand"
– Northeast Kforce Finance and Accounting recruiting veteran
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