- The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its February employment report Friday.
- The economy is expected to have added 180,000 jobs last month.
- That's a slowdown from blockbuster growth in December and January.
Offering the latest snapshot of the American economy, the official employment report out Friday showed hiring accelerated at its slowest pace in more than a year and that wage growth picked up.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the US added 20,000 nonfarm payrolls last month, the fewest since September 2017 and missing expectations for an increase of 170,000 jobs. That was a marked slowdown from a blockbuster 311,000 and 227,000 jobs created in January and December, respectively.
“We’re not going to be able to create that many jobs month in and month out,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s. “I think we’re going to see things begin to settle down in February and throughout the rest of this year.”
The unemployment rate fell to 3.8% after edging higher during the partial government shutdown that ended in January, which kept nine of 15 cabinet-level departments shuttered for five weeks to make it the longest on record.
Once a soft spot in the economy, wage gains have picked up over the past year and are expected to continue to climb. Average hourly earnings rose 3.4% from a year earlier in February, the best since 2009.
The labor market continued to pull Americans from the sidelines last month. The labor-force participation rate held steady at 63.2%, itshighest level since 2013, but is still low by historical standards and compared with other countries.
Growth is widely expected to slow over the next two years in the US and other major economies. But so far, nonfarm payrolls have averaged at 186,000 over the past three months.
“The weak job growth reading is not necessarily reason for concern just yet,” said ZipRecruiter Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, a job recruiting site. “The economy is still producing far more jobs than is necessary to keep pace with population growth.”
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