The U.S. labor market continues to surprise economists and Wall Street with its resilience, as broad job gains in January led to employment growth of 353,000.
The hiring was led by health care and social assistance, which added more than 100,000 jobs. If you include private education in that category, as some economists do, that total jumps to 112,000 jobs.
Health-care job growth was boosted by 33,000 net hires in ambulatory health services and 20,000 in hospitals, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Professional and business services was another area of strength, adding 74,000 jobs. That is well above the monthly average of 14,000 from last year.
Manufacturing employment jumped by 23,000 jobs after seeing little growth last year. Chemical manufacturing accounted for 7,000 of those jobs.
“Job gains were broadly distributed across the economy, with even manufacturing and retail — two sectors where job growth was particularly weak in 2023 — posting strong gains,” Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said in a note.
Mining and logging was the weak spot, losing 7,000 jobs, even though the sub-category of oil and gas extraction saw a slight gain, according to the BLS.
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