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The US economy added 130,000 jobs in January, outperforming market expectations, in a sign of improvement in the US labor market after disappointing data.
Wednesday’s figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was nearly double the 68,000 anticipated by economists surveyed by Bloomberg and the revised 48,000 added last month.
US Treasury yields jumped as investors lowered expectations of interest rate cuts this year. The two-year yield, which is particularly sensitive to monetary policy, rose 0.08 percentage points to 3.55 percent, its highest level in a week.
Futures market traders, who were betting on two or three rate cuts by December this year, have scaled back expectations of a cut, now pricing in just two.
The unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.3 percent.
But the BLS slowed job gains over the past year to 181,000 from 584,000, underscoring that hiring is set to slow sharply in 2025 after years of strong growth.
A series of recent reports released last week suggested it was about to get worse, with layoffs increasing and job opportunities shrinking.
But the latest data will help bolster outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell’s argument that the labor market was showing “evidence of stability” after the central bank halted its campaign of rate cuts last month.
Wednesday’s release was delayed from last week as a result of the recent partial government shutdown. The January jobs numbers came with revisions to the BLS’s annual benchmarks in previously released data.
This is a developing story
