The U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.
Economists had expected the economy to add 187,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to tick up to 3.6 percent. The range of forecasts by economists surveyed by Econoday was between a gain on payrolls of 150,000 to 260,000, a rather large range that suggests a higher level of uncertainty. On unemployment, the range of forecasts was 3.4 percent to 3.6 percent.
The Labor Department’s Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey, knowns as Jolts, showed that there were 11 million job openings at the end of December, around 1.9 vacancies for every unemployed person. Federal Reserve officials frequently cite the vacancy ratio as evidence that the labor market is so tight that it risks fueling inflation.
In November, the preliminary report indicated the economy created 223,000 jobs, exceeding expectations for around 200,000. The unemployment rate was reported as declining to 3.5 percent, defying expectations that it would tick up.
