U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, Employment rate show slight drop.

February 1, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Today, data released out of the U.S. showed that U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls decreased in January according to a report by the U.S. Department of Labor. January nonfarm payrolls showed a slight drop of 17,000 jobs, the first time since August 2003 that nonfarm labor numbers had decreased. November payroll employment had gained 60,000 jobs while December payrolls gained 82,000 jobs, revised up from an initial estimate of 18,000 jobs gained. The average monthly gain of nonfarm jobs for the year of 2007 was 95,000.

The U.S. unemployment rate dipped slightly to 4.9 percent from 5.0 percent in December as the number of unemployed workers was primarily the same from last month at 7.6 million. Manufacturing and construction were the hardest hit by job losses in January as they lost 28,000 jobs and 27,000 jobs, respectively. Health care grew by 27,000 jobs in January as education and health services combined to show 47,000 jobs gained in the month. Hourly earnings rose by 4 cents in January after December's rise of 7 cents and for the year of 2007, average hourly earnings showed a gain of 3.7 percent while weekly earnings grew 3.4 percent. Read the full report(pdf).

Tags: Unemployment Rate, US Nonfarm Payrolls

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