Feb. 2 (UPI) — U.S. job creation in January hit 353,000, bringing the total created during the Biden administration to 14.8 million, according to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.
The unemployment rate was 3.7%, according to the Friday report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since Biden took office, 791,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs have been created nationwide, according to Su.
“This continues a two-year trend of a jobless rate under 4%, the longest stretch in more than 50 years,” Su said in a Friday statement. “This strong jobs report also shows balanced, broad-based growth across sectors, with gains in retail, health care and professional and business services like engineering and management jobs.”
U.S. job creation growth in January far exceeded expectations.
The monthly employment situation summary showed the United States added 353,000 non-farm payroll jobs to start 2024, with an unemployment rate of 3.7%.
Su said even with strong economic gains like this, America still has more room to grow by bringing more people into the labor force.
“That’s why we will continue to pursue President [Joe]Biden’s agenda of creating good jobs with pathways to the middle class and fighting for policies that support childcare workers and working families,” she said.
Biden said in statement Friday that America’s economy is the strongest in the world.
“It’s great news for working families that wages, wealth, and jobs are higher now than before the pandemic, and I won’t stop fighting to lower costs and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up,” Biden’s statement said.
The BLS noted January job growth in professional and business services, healthcare, retail and social assistance, while employment growth fell in mining, quarrying and the oil and gas industry.
Some 74,000 jobs were created in professional and business services while 70,000 healthcare jobs were added.
Retail trade jobs increased by 45,000 in January and social assistance jobs were up by 30,000. Manufacturing posted job gains of 23,000.
Government employment was up 36,000, lower than the 57,000-a-month average gains in 2023 in that sector.
Economists were expecting 185,000 jobs to be created in January with unemployment edging up to 3.8%.
But January’s numbers were far stronger, exceeding even the revised December 2023 job creation total of 333,000, which also surpassed what economists polled by Dow Jones were expecting.
Ahead of the jobs report, Treasury yields for 10-year notes were two points higher at 3.88% Friday, while 2-year Treasury notes were 3.5 basis points higher at 4.23%.
Friday’s numbers include government jobs, while reports compiled by ADP reflect private sector jobs created among clients of the payroll company. ADP said 107,000 private jobs were added in January.
According to ADP, private sector job growth declined in January.