Jobs Report Will Offer a First Look at the 2025 Labor Market
A Labor Department report on Friday is expected to show another solid month of job growth to start 2025, despite routine but larger-than-usual annual revisions.
The median estimate among economists surveyed by Bloomberg pegs growth at 175,000 jobs in January, which would be in line with the average over the preceding quarter — although the numbers from month to month have been volatile.
The numbers will reflect some effect from the devastating wildfires in Southern California, which hit right before the Labor Department's surveys started, as well as bitterly cold weather across the Midwest and East Coast that may have pushed up unemployment claims slightly.
The report will also be somewhat difficult to interpret, as earlier data will be revised to incorporate more complete estimates of population growth as well as claims from state unemployment insurance programs.
But overall, it's forecast to show a labor market that was still in fine form on the eve of the transition to the administration of President Trump, with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.1 percent. Layoffs remain lower than historical norms, and while the job-opening rate has sunk back to where it was before the pandemic, few employees are quitting.
'While people are not being aggressively recruited away from their current job, they still feel pretty confident about their job,' said Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at the French bank Société Générale. 'And if they were to lose their job, they have a certain level of confidence that they could find one relatively quickly.'
Mr. Trump is taking actions that may disrupt employment through sharp reductions in the federal work force and the removal of unauthorized immigrants — but those changes will show up only in future months.
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