Jobs For January
The official jobs report was released this morning. There were 225,000 new jobs which were much more than the expected at 165,000. In December, 147,000 new jobs were created. The unemployment rate moved up from 3.5% to 3.6%. The reason was that more people entered the labor force. Finally, wages went up as well rising by .3% from .1% the month prior.
We still have more jobs versus people to fill. The problem is a miss-match of skills needed. Employers are going to have to make a strong effort to train with pressure to retain their already trained employees. That should translate into higher salaries. So far, there has been few indications that this has happened.
When you add this to the very low weekly jobless claims, the picture is clear that we have a strong job market and that should result into a continuing healthy economy.
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