Economy Added 49,000 Jobs in January

2/16/2021

793,000

Initial U.S unemployment claims totaled a seasonally adjusted 793,000 in the week ending February 6, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week’s revised level, the Labor Department reported. Continuing claims, which track the aggregate total of Americans receiving jobless benefits through regular state programs, fell to 4.5 million. Furthermore, for the week ending February 6, 52 states reported 334,524 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a program for the self-employed and gig workers, the report shows. For the week ending January 30, the largest increases in initial claims were in California (51,025), New York (11,140) and Florida (+6,322), while Illinois (55,473), Kansas (7,496) and Mississippi reported the largest decreases in initial claims.

49,000

The U.S. hiring growth rebounded less than expected in January. The economy added 49,000 jobs in January — falling short of the 70,000 forecast, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent from 6.7 percent, topping their pre-pandemic level of 3.5% in February 2020. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the notable job gains in January occurred in professional and business services as employment increased by 97,000 and employment in public and private education increased by 36,000 and 34,000 respectively. The massive job losses came in health care, leisure and hospitality, transportation, warehousing, and in retail trade, the report shows.

0.7%

According to a report by Indeed, job postings on its website had grown up to 0.7% at the end of January month, which is above the pre-pandemic baseline on Feb. 1, 2020. The figure shows that postings have increased compared with the month of May low job postings and also indicates much slower growth than before the pandemic when U.S. job postings increased 9%. However, the new job opening also suggests that businesses have fully recovered from the COVID pandemic but are growing much more slowly. The opening does not mean that all sectors have recovered. Job postings have fallen most in hotels and tourism –down nearly 37.9% from February 1, 2021, while restaurant jobs are down 13% and arts and entertainment nearly 17%.

1.4M

The Congressional Budget Office study says that a $15 an hour minimum wage by 2025 would increase paychecks for millions of Americans by a total of $509 billion, but also leads to job losses of 1.4 million. This will also reduce the number of Americans below the poverty line by 900,000 and result in lower spending on food stamps and child nutrition programs. The Nonpartisan study found that the federal minimum wage would take full effect by 2025, would increase workers' pay by $333 billion — giving a boost to some 17 million U.S. workers, or about 10% of the labor force. CBO has said that the impact on the employment rolls is just a bit higher than the 1.3 million employment estimate from a 2019 report.

$144 B

The U.S government has posted a December budget deficit of $144 billion, marked the record high for the month, and expected to grow even higher in the coming months once the federal aid for the economy got approved. Receipts for the last month rose 3% from a year earlier to $346 billion, while outlays raised 40% to $490 billion — both recorded record highs. According to the WSJ, the monthly shortage got widened for an estimation of about $165 billion in the month of January compared with $33 billion in January of the previous year. Spending on unemployment benefits, which got a top-up in legislation increased to $34 billion in the previous month from $28 billion in December and $3 billion in January.

14.9

According to the WSJ report, International Business Machines Corp. is reported as the biggest gainer in the management top 250, which scored 95.7 and ranked No.2 for innovation. There is a great enhancement in the technology giant’s score for innovation and helped to boost the overall score. The overall score for IBM has increased by 14.9 points from 2019 to 2020. The Microsoft Corp. is ranked higher as Number 1 with a score of 103 and DexCom Inc. and General Electric Co. marked the second and third gains, respectively. The overall score for DexCom’s have increased from 12.6 points to 57 in the year 2020 with placing the company at No.185, the report shows.

3.4%

In the year 2020, the state and local governments have expected that the pandemic has let the downturn to reduce their budgets because the maximum of business closures and layoffs wiped out tax revenue. Nearly 18.6 million people got jobs from the U.S government as they offer services from collecting trash to teaching children. Due to the coronavirus, the states slashed revenue projections by about 8% with a shortfall of 20%. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, state revenues dropped to 1.6% in the year 2020 and 3.4% less when compared before the pandemic, while for fiscal 2021, the states except revenue to decrease 4.4% — which is going to end on June 30 for most of the states, and 18 states are looking for revenues in above forecast.