US employment figures disappoint

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Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will be closely watching the jobless figures. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The stuttering recovery in the US economy is expected to continue after employment rose by a lacklustre 36,000 in January, well below expectations of 145,000 for the month.

After some positive signs from higher corporate profits and strong growth in manufacturing, analysts had expected an improvement on the 121,000 jump in payroll numbers in December. However, the unemployment rate fell from 9.4% to 9%, its lowest level since April 2009, and the government revised the November and December figures to show 40,000 more jobs created that previously estimated.

The government blamed the poor performance of the labour market on snow storms over the last month which have battered large parts of the US. It said the severe weather could have affected construction jobs, which dropped 32,000 last month.

The modest jobs gains were at odds with other data for January, which had suggested employment growth was picking up and had raised hopes that the manufacturing-led recovery was now spreading to other sectors of the economy.

In the summer last year the US economy had begun to add more than 400,000 jobs a month before suffering a reversal in the autumn. A rise of around 200,000 in November appeared to signal a resurgent economy, but has proved a false dawn as jobs growth has slowed again.

The figures will be studied closely by the Federal Reserve, which has argued it needs to pump further liquidity into the economy through its $ 600bn (£372bn) quantitative easing programme to boost confidence and employment.

Rob Carnell of ING said the figures disguised some disturbing trends. He picked out that hours worked fell on average by 0.1 hours, and aggregate hours worked were also lower.

He said: “One might be tempted to read something positive also from the fall in the unemployment rate from 9.4% to 9%. But despite a 117,000 gain in employment measured by the household survey in Jan, most of this fall in the unemployment rate was the result of a further 507,000 decline in the civilian labour force, which contributed most of the 622,000 decline in ‘unemployment’ this month. Moreover, adding to the sense that all is not entirely well with the US labour force, the average duration of unemployment continues to drift higher.”

The Guardian World News

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