Employment Situation

This report is now adjusted to show the impact of the population control adjustment.

The employment report was the strongest this cycle with payroll employment rising 243,000.
The household survey shows a gain of 843,000 but almost 250,000 of that is due to the new population adjustments so the net result is an increase of 631,000. This is what is in the chart, but
the January observation is not comparable to the 2011 observations.
Moreover, hours worked rose 0.6% as compared to the 0.2% norm over most of this cycle.In January government employment was little changed as compared to the 276,000 drop in government employment last year.

Despite all the talk about uncertainty employment gains this cycle continue to be better than last cycle.
The civilian employment/population ratio was little changed last month as it has been for months so the drop in the unemployment rate continued to stem more from the labor force falling rather than employment rising.

But hours worked for nonsupervisory workers rose 0.6% in January, the strongest gain this cycle.



Average hourly earnings only rose 0.2% and the year over year change in average hourly earnings is now 1.9%, the smallest increase on record.

The combination of very strong gains in hours worked and very weak average hourly earnings average weekly earnings appear to be bottoming.