Employers added 517,000 jobs in January 2023, capping a year marked by record-low unemployment and high job growth. The unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, a low last seen in 1969, according to new data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This month's employment report is particularly complex because the release includes an annual update to estimates of the overall population size and corrections to the employer data that reflect a comparison of survey estimates with comprehensive counts of payroll jobs, say University of Michigan economic researchers Betsey Stevenson and Benny Docter.
"Job growth was stronger than we realized last year and yet inflation moderated," said Stevenson, a professor at U-M's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. "Clearly, we need to be more circumspect about our understanding of job growth, a tight labor market and the potential for wage price spirals when the growth is part of a recovery from a pandemic that plunged us temporarily into a hole."
