Group 1 - The labor market showed significant improvement in January, with US employers adding 130,000 jobs, far exceeding expectations of 55,000 jobs [1][3] - The unemployment rate decreased slightly to 4.3% from 4.4% in the previous month, indicating a positive trend in employment [3] - January's job growth comes after 2025 marked the slowest year for job growth since 2009, excluding the pandemic year of 2020 [3] Group 2 - The upbeat jobs report may be somewhat misleading due to fewer seasonal hires by retailers during the 2025 holiday season, which could inflate the headline job figures [4] - Initial unemployment claims have remained low, but job openings fell to 6.5 million in December, the lowest since September 2020, suggesting mixed signals in the labor market [4] - Ger Doyle from ManpowerGroup noted that January provides an early indication of a labor market stabilizing after a year of adjustments [5]
US employers add 130K jobs in January in strong start to 2026
New York Post·2026-02-11 13:42