Evelyn Reynolds

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Health care was a bright spot once again for the U.S. economy in January, even as overall job growth showed signs of slowing.
Data on job growth in different areas of the economy from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed health care and social assistance as the leading category, adding 66,000 jobs. Retail trade and government were also strong, adding more than 30,000 jobs apiece.

The gains in health care were broadly in line with the growth rates from 2024. The jump in retail jobs was more surprising, as that sector showed “little net change” last year, according to the bureau.
There were some pockets of weakness, with professional and business services losing 11,000 jobs. Employment in leisure and hospitality, one of the biggest areas of job growth after the Covid pandemic, also shrank slightly.
Overall, the net job growth of 143,000 was well below the upwardly revised growth of 307,000 in December. However, the unemployment rate fell and wage growth was strong, pointing to a solid and steady job market despite the lower headline number.
Looking at January, “what we see is a labor market that’s basically operating at full employment. And so I think the real question going forward is: Can we sustain full employment?” University of Michigan professor and former Department of Labor chief economist Betsey Stevenson said Friday on “Squawk Box.” More

Nonfarm payrolls in January rose by a seasonally adjusted 143,000 for the month, down from 307,000 in December and below the 169,000 forecast. The unemployment rate nudged lower to 4%.
Job growth was concentrated in health care (44,000), retail (34,000) and government (32,000).
Wages rose more than expected: Average hourly earnings increased 0.5% for the month and 4.1% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.
The report also featured significant benchmark revisions to the 2024 totals.

Job creation was lower than expected in January, though the unemployment rate edged down and worker wages rose sharply, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls climbed by a seasonally adjusted 143,000 for the month, down from an upwardly revised 307,000 in December and below the 169,000 forecast from Dow Jones. The unemployment rate nudged lower to 4%.

The report also featured significant benchmark revisions to the 2024 totals that saw substantial downward changes to the previous payrolls level though upward revisions to those who reported holding jobs.

The revisions, which the BLS does each year, reduced the jobs count by 589,000 in the 12 months through March 2024. A preliminary adjustment back in August 2024 had indicated 818,000 fewer jobs.
The level of those reporting at work, as computed in the household survey, soared by 2.23 million, the product of annual adjustments for population and immigration in the country. The household survey happens separately from the establishment survey used to tally total jobs.
Job growth for January was concentrated in health care (44,000), retail (34,000) and government (32,000). The total gain for the month was slightly off the average 166,000 in 2024, the BLS said. Social assistance added 22,000, while mining-related industries lost 8,000.
Along with the upward revision to the December count, the BLS took up the November total to 261,000, a change of 49,000. The two months together saw upward revisions of 100,000.

The unemployment rate moved lower as labor force participation increased, rising to 62.6%, up 0.1 percentage point from December. A broader measure that includes discouraged workers as well as those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons held steady at 7.5%.
While job gains were muted, wages rose more than expected: Average hourly earnings increased 0.5% for the month and 4.1% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.

Markets showed little reaction to the report, with stock market futures around flat and Treasury yields higher.
“A lower-than-expected January payrolls number was more than offset by upward revisions to November and December’s totals and a downtick in the unemployment rate,” said Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. “Those who’d hoped for a soft report that would nudge the Fed back into rate-cutting mode didn’t get it.”
The report is the first jobs count since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 with plans to cut taxes, boost growth and level the global playing field on trade by slapping heavy tariffs on the biggest U.S. trading partners.
Federal Reserve officials are watching the numbers closely as they contemplate their next monetary policy moves. The Fed cut its benchmark rate by a full percentage point in the latter part of 2024, but policymakers of late have been advocating a more cautious pace ahead as they evaluate policy ramifications.
Markets expect the Fed to stay on hold until at least June, with a second cut down to about a 50-50 chance, according to futures pricing measured by the CME Group.
While some economists had expected that the California wildfires would reduce the job count, the bureau said they “had no discernible effect” on the total.
Correction: The unemployment rate fell to 4% in January. The headline on an earlier version misstated the move.

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The Labor Department’s latest monthly report on hiring and unemployment will include revisions for previous months. The revised figures should provide a more accurate picture of the U.S. job market, but they could also sow confusion.The monthly job figures are based on two surveys, one of employers and one of households. Those surveys are generally reliable, but they aren’t perfect. So once a year, the government reconciles the numbers with less timely but more reliable data from other sources.Figures in the employer survey will be revised sharply downward to align with data from state unemployment offices showing that employers added hundreds of thousands fewer jobs in 2023 and 2024 than initially reported. The updated figures should show slower but still healthy job growth in those years.The other change applies to the household survey. It will reflect an updated methodology that the Census Bureau considers a better reflection of recent immigration in its population estimates. That will show up as a huge, one-month jump in virtually every measure that is based on them, and preclude comparisons with previous months. But measures based on ratios — like the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate — should be mostly unaffected. More

Less than six months ago, Federal Reserve officials were wringing their hands about the state of the labor market. No major cracks had emerged, but monthly jobs growth had slowed and the unemployment rate was steadily ticking higher. In a bid to preserve the economy’s strength, the Fed took the unusual step of lowering interest rates by double the magnitude of its typical moves.Those concerns have since evaporated. Officials now exude a rare confidence that the labor market is strong and set to stay that way, providing them latitude to hold rates steady for awhile.The approach constitutes a strategic gamble, which economists by and large expect to work out. That suggests the central bank will take its time before lowering borrowing costs again and await clearer signs that price pressures are easing.“The jobs data just aren’t calling for lower rates right now,” said Jon Faust of the Center for Financial Economics at Johns Hopkins University, who was a senior adviser to the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell. “If the labor market seriously broke, that may warrant a policy reaction, but other than that, it takes some progress on inflation.”Across a number of metrics, the labor market looks remarkably stable even as it has cooled. Monthly jobs growth has stayed solid and the unemployment rate has barely budged from its current level of 4.1 percent after rising over the summer. The number of Americans out of work and filing for weekly benefits remains low, too.“People can get jobs and employers can find workers,” said Mary C. Daly, president of the San Francisco Fed, in an interview earlier this week. “I don’t see any signs right now of weakening.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bailed out by the government during the housing crisis nearly 17 years ago. The Trump administration is considering letting them go private again.Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two giant mortgage finance firms, have been controlled by the federal government for nearly 17 years, but a long-dormant idea of making them private businesses is starting to make the rounds in Washington again.Scott Turner, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said in an interview this week that coordinating the effort to privatize the two firms would be his priority. One of President Trump’s backers, the hedge fund investor William A. Ackman, is calling on the president to quickly move forward on the privatization.But Fannie and Freddie underpin the nation’s $12 trillion mortgage market, so they need to be handled with care. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said last month that any plan for ending the so-called conservatorship of the two firms “should be carefully designed and executed.”The last time Mr. Trump was president, a number of his advisers took steps toward coming up with a plan for releasing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government control. In the end, the first Trump administration took no action, and the Biden administration put the issue on the back burner.Here is a quick primer on why Fannie and Freddie are so critical to the mortgage market and some of the issues likely to come up in the debate over how to end the conservatorship.What do Fannie and Freddie do?“No conservatorship should be indefinite,” Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, wrote in a response to questions before his confirmation.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Many databases from the U.S. Census Bureau appeared to be unavailable to the public on Thursday.
Several economists told CNBC’s Steve Liesman that they were unable to access data from the main Census Bureau website on Thursday, though some were able to access the information through various workarounds.

Many databases from the U.S. Census Bureau appeared to be unavailable to the public on Thursday, with users being told access was “forbidden” when attempting to download common datasets.
Several data experts told CNBC that they were receiving the same error message on files that are routinely available.

“My staff tried numerous economic releases, and we could not access them through Census.gov,” said Maurine Haver, founder of Haver Analytics. The company is a leading global data provider, including to CNBC.
Data experts were able to download some files through various workarounds.
A few of the datasets that were unavailable to CNBC late Thursday include information on voter demographics, population changes by state and small businesses.
Economists were concerned that there could be wider implications.
“When was the last time that Census just stopped publishing data? That just doesn’t happen,” said Michael Horrigan, president of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Two data experts at the institute were also unable to download data from Census.gov.

“It suggests that there may be internal pressures not to publish data that we rely on, and we need to figure out if that’s true,” Horrigan said.
Some databases were still accessible to the public. It is unclear if the restricted data was due to a technical issue or as part of the changes around information and communication under President Donald Trump.
Erica Groshen, former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Obama administration, said the Census data is vital to decision-making across government and business.
“Monetary policy, fiscal policy and investment decisions will all be worse when data quality declines, or reports are delayed or absent,” Groshen told CNBC.
The Census Bureau did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment Thursday afternoon.
The Census Bureau website was one of several government webpages that briefly went dark last Friday following the White House order to remove certain language around diversity, equity and inclusion.

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When the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its nonfarm payrolls count for January, it is projected to show growth of 169,000, down from 256,000 in December, but nearly in line with the three-month average.
Also, annual benchmark revisions are projected to show a record increase of 3.5 million in the population and 2.3 million in household employment.
Recent indicators show that while hiring has leveled off, layoffs aren’t increasing and workers aren’t quitting, though job openings are on the decline.

A hiring sign is posted on the door of a Taco Bell in Alexandria, Virginia, on Aug. 22, 2024.
Anna Rose Layden | Getty Images

The U.S. labor market likely began 2025 in solid fashion, in a bit of a step down from where it closed the previous year.
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its nonfarm payrolls count for January, it is projected to show growth of 169,000, down from 256,000 in December, but nearly in line with the past three-month average. The unemployment rate is projected to stay at 4.1%, according to the Dow Jones consensus for the report, which will be out Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

While the takeaway could be that job creation is slowing, the broader view is that the employment picture is holding solid, and it’s not likely to be a problem for the Federal Reserve any time in the near future.
“With inflation at least for now at tolerable levels and firms very comfortable making sustained investment, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t continue to see job growth around 150,000 per month, which is the upper end of what’s needed to keep the labor market stable,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. “In other words, we’re at full employment. This is a good problem to have.”
By the time the Fed concluded its final three meetings of 2024, it had cut its key borrowing rate by a full percentage point. In good part, this was because policymakers sought to support a labor market that showed signs of weakening.
However, recent indicators show that while hiring has leveled off, layoffs aren’t increasing and workers aren’t quitting, though job openings are on the decline.
Such relative stability is a welcome sign with the likelihood that the Fed will be on hold, possibly until summer, while officials wait to see the fallout of President Donald Trump’s fiscal agenda that includes aggressive tariffs against the largest U.S. trading partners.

“The economy is still going to roll on, people are going to make investment decisions, they’re going to get up each morning and go to work,” Brusuelas said.

Annual revisions to take focus

Though the usual payroll number is expected to show more or less status quo conditions, markets also will be watching annual benchmark revisions to both the establishment and household surveys that the BLS compiles.
When the initial revisions were released in August 2024, they showed a stunning 818,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported in the establishment count from April 2023 to March 2024. That total is expected to come down considerably as adjustments are made for immigration and population.
The revisions also are projected to show a record increase of 3.5 million in the population and 2.3 million in household employment, according to Goldman Sachs. The firm sees more modest adjustments upward in labor force participation and unemployment.
The two BLS surveys have differed sharply in the post-Covid years. The establishment survey is used to calculate the nonfarm payrolls number while the BLS derives the unemployment rate from the household count. The latter has shown a less optimistic view of employment conditions that could be corrected with the revisions.
In any event, if the report comes in anywhere near expectations, it’s unlikely to move the needle for the Fed even with the tariff question lingering.
“The labor market is a lot more important to the Fed than what’s going on with tariffs,” said Eric Winograd, director of developed market economic research at AllianceBernstein. “The payrolls numbers are volatile. Anything can happen in any given month. But there’s nothing in particular that makes me think that this month’s print will look meaningfully different than the past few, and that’s enough to keep the Fed on hold.”
In addition to the headline payroll numbers and revisions, the BLS will also release data on average hourly earnings.
The estimate is for January to show a 0.3% increase in wages and a 3.7% 12-month increase. If the annual figure is correct, it will be the lowest level since July 2024.

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Even if the U.K. is not the “direct recipient” of potential tariffs imposed by the U.S., “it will have an effect,” Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.
The Bank of England on Thursday cut its benchmark interest rates by 25 basis points to to 4.5%.

Even if the U.K. is not the “direct recipient” of potential tariffs imposed by the U.S., “it will have an effect,” Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.
If tariffs are announced, their effect on the global economic growth and inflation would need to be looked at, Bailey told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

“Now I think that in terms of growth in the world economy, if this will lead to a, you know, fragmentation of the world economy, that is not good for growth,” Bailey said. “The impact on inflation is more ambiguous, because it depends upon what other countries do in response, it depends on what the consequences of those actions and reactions are for trade,” he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that the U.K. could be in line for tariffs, but has also indicated a deal could potentially be struck. Trump last week announced tariffs on goods imported from China, Canada and Mexico, before pausing planned duties on imports from the two latter economies.
Bailey on Thursday also noted that the U.K. “does not have a substantial trade imbalance with the U.S.”
The U.S. was the U.K.’s biggest trading partner in the year to September 2024, accounting for over 17% of total U.K. trade, according to official data.
Depending on which figures you look at, the two countries either have a small trade deficit or surplus. What’s important for Trump, though — who has expressed dissatisfaction when the U.S. exports less to a country than it imports — is the numbers are almost balanced.

Bailey also pointed out that services are a large part of U.K. trade, which classic tariffs do not affect in the same way as other goods.

A ‘gradual’ and ‘careful’ BOE decision

The Bank of England on Thursday cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to to 4.5%. Seven members out of the nine-strong monetary policy committee (MPC) voted in favor of the cut, while two members voted for a larger 50 basis-point reduction.
After the announcement, Bailey said in a press conference that the MPC expected to be able to cut interest rates further as disinflation progressed, but noted that these decisions would be taken on a meeting-by-meeting basis.
Speaking to CNBC, Bailey described the cut as “careful” and “gradual,” adding that the central bankers were using those words “very deliberately.”
The word “gradual” referred to the disinflation process, while “careful” was a nod toward “risks and uncertainties,” he said.
Such uncertainties, “could lead to us having, frankly, you know, higher inflation, which we will have to deal with. We’re going to have this sort of uptick in inflation.” He added that this inflation is unlikely to persist.
The BOE on Thursday also halved its growth expectation for the U.K. for 2025, from 1.5% to 0.75%.
The economy flatlined in the third quarter, according to data released in December, while the latest monthly GDP reading showed the economy expanded just 0.1% in November, after shrinking by 0.1% in October. 
— CNBC’s Chloe Taylor and Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report. More