NC State’s Dr. Mike Walden – The New Job Report

“According to the January New Job Report, businesses added a little over 240,000 jobs nationwide, a very healthy increase. It was a much better increase than we have seen in recent months.  We had job gains across the board in manufacturing, professional jobs, entertainment and recreation, and healthcare.  The unemployment rate that gets the most attention did drop from 8.5% to 8.3%, however that rate does not include folks that have stopped looking for work. But even if you include them, the so called discouraged workers, those unemployment rates also went down.  So over all it was a good report. It’s going to be a challenge to see if the drop continues, if the growth in the economy, the growth of jobs continues. My forecast is that we will likely not have that same number of jobs created each month; it will be probably be closer to 150,000. We will continue to see some improvement in the labor market, though it will be sluggish in some people’s eyes.”