Daily News 2/6/2015

February 06, 2015

Friday – February 6

The job markets continue to receive good news with robust job gains along with rising wages. The Labor Department reported that Non-farm payrolls grew by 257,000 in January, well above the 235,000 expected, while November and December’s figures were revised higher by 147,000. There was an average of 336,000 jobs created in the past three months, the best in 17 years. Average hourly earnings surged higher by 0.5%, above the 0.3% expected, while the annual rate rose to 2.2%, the best since August.

Within the report it showed that the Unemployment Rate rose slightly to 5.7% in January, from 5.6% as the rate increased due to more Americans searching for jobs. The 5.6% is well below the 10% recorded back in October 2009, at the height of the recession. The data revealed that retailers posted the biggest hiring gains of 46,000, with 39,000 construction jobs added, while the manufacturing sector added 22,000. The data said that a total of 140.59 million Americans were employed at the end of 2014.