Omicron or not, U.S. jobs, hiring lead economic growth

The U.S. added a robust 467,000 jobs in January and hiring was much stronger at the end of 2021 than originally reported. This points to the resilience of a rapidly recovering economy despite successive waves of the coronavirus, says Market Watch.

The US non-farm payrolls surprisingly increased by 467K in Jan-22 (Dec-21: 510K) albeit logging the lowest monthly job creation since Sep-21.

The stronger-than-expected job creation which surpassed the market consensus of only 150K jobs, came in despite the concerns over the uptick in Covid-19 cases in the region.

Most of the job growth during the month was accounted to the increased hiring in the sectors of leisure & hospitality; accommodation; professional & business services; retail trade; and transportation & warehousing.

Meanwhile, the US jobless rate edged up to +4% in Jan-22 (Dec-21: +3.9%), snapping the streak of the downward trend for the past 6 months.

Return to work

Despite the rise in the unemployment rate, the labour force participation rate further rose to a new pandemic high of 62.2% (Dec-21: 61.9%) indicating workers continued to return to the workforce.

“Moving forward, we anticipate the US job market to continue recovering in the coming months as fears over the rising infection rate subsides and the abolition of the vaccine mandate.

“In addition, the increased participation rate indicates a positive outlook for the worker shortages crisis in the country. Moreover, the stronger gains in employment would further prompt the feds to tighten its monetary policy in its upcoming meeting.

“However, the pace of recovery in the job market could be affected by the inability of Americans to work due to illness or quarantine,” says MIDF.