'Labor Market Remains Stalled. Virus Remains Active': Economists React To January Jobs Report On Twitter
Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 49,000 jobs in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
The unemployment rate fell to 6.3%.
The leisure and hospitality sector saw its employment level fall by 61,000 jobs in January after losing 536,000 jobs in December. Since February 2020, leisure and hospitality employment is down by 3.9 million jobs, or 22.9%.
Employment in retail trade fell by 38,000 jobs in January after adding 135,000 jobs in December. There are now 383,000 fewer jobs in retail trade than in February 2020.
Even construction fell by 3,000 jobs in January after eight consecutive months of job gains. Employment in construction is down by 256,000 jobs since last February.
Employment in professional and business services did rise by 97,000 jobs in January, but 81,000 of those jobs were in temporary help services.
Overall, total nonfarm payroll employment is below its February 2020 level by 9.9 million jobs, or 6.5%.
Here's how economists and others reacted to the January jobs report on Twitter.
The good news is that the economic recovery is not quite sliding into reverse, the bad news is that it has largely stalled for the moment.
— Adam Ozimek (@ModeledBehavior) February 5, 2021
Many industries shed jobs in January
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) February 5, 2021
January job gains:
Business +97,000 -->mostly "temp help"
Public education: +85,000
Private education: +34,000
January job losses:
Gambling -27,000
Hotels -18,000
Restaurants -19,000
Retail -38,000
Healthcare -30,000
Transportation -28,000
Industry payroll data is also weak:
— Daniel Zhao (@DanielBZhao) February 5, 2021
*Continuing pandemic effect -> -61K in leisure & hospitality
*End of holiday season -> -37.8K in retail, -27.8 in transportation & warehousing
*Temp help services +80.9K drove Jan gains; not great long-term indicator#JobsReport #JobsDay 5/ pic.twitter.com/AEbPvo1QiO
#jobsday state and local governments added 67k jobs, all in education, non-education jobs fell
— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) February 5, 2021
NEW #JobsReport shows child care has lost 1 in 6 workers since the start of the pandemic. We need to act now to #SaveChildCare.
— Dr. Kate Gallagher Robbins (@kfgrobbins) February 5, 2021
Healthcare jobs declined a total of 30k jobs, but led by losses among some of the lower-paid healthcare jobs, like nursing care facilities & home health care services.
— Kate Bahn (@LipstickEcon) February 5, 2021
When care needs are still high & low-wage workers are being hit the hardest, this is bad for a lot of reasons.
Another 61k leisure and hospitality jobs cut in January, after a revised 536k lost in December. This is just a brutal, brutal winter for service industries.
— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) February 5, 2021
I've consistently tracked two measures in the jobs report that I think highlight the longer-term path rather than immediate economic pain:
— Jed Kolko (@JedKolko) February 5, 2021
* core unemployment
* payrolls in high-WFH sectors
Both improved in January. There's a LOT of economic pain right now, but I'm hopeful.
And a reminder that it is not true that "everyone" is working from home because of the pandemic—only 23.2% of employed people report having teleworked or worked at home in the last 4 weeks because of the pandemic. That's less than one in four workers. 16/ https://t.co/1PS2vmelZw
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 5, 2021
In sum,
— Aaron Sojourner (@aaronsojourner) February 5, 2021
- Labor market remains stalled. Virus remains active. Throw every productive resource we can at it.
- Employment loss remains profound.
Americans' sacrifices are preserving neighbors' health. Govt should compensate. Market can't. Desperate people make risky choices.
