Construction jobs continue to show improvement; past two years' hiring increased to 180,000 a month. Chrysler has a strong month.
U.S. employers added 157,000 jobs in January and hiring was stronger over the past two years than previously thought, providing reassurance that the job market held steady while economic growth sputtered.
The mostly upbeat Labor Department report today included one negative sign: the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December. The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of households, while job gains come from a survey of employers.
The hiring picture over the past two years looked better after the department's annual revisions. Those showed employers added an average of roughly 180,000 jobs per month in 2012 and 2011, up from previous estimates of about 150,000. And hiring was stronger at the end of last year, averaging 200,000 new jobs in the final three months.
Stock futures rose after the report was released.
One notable change in the job market is the stronger contribution from construction firms. They added 28,000 jobs in January and nearly 100,000 in the past four months. The gains are consistent with a rebound in home construction and a broader recovery in housing.
Last month's hiring should cushion the impact of the higher Social Security taxes that most consumers are paying this year. And it would help the economy resume growing after it shrank at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the October-December quarter.
Higher Social Security taxes are reducing take-home pay for most Americans. A person earning $50,000 a year will have about $1,000 less to spend in 2013. A household with two high-paid workers will have up to $4,500 less. Taxes rose after a 2 percent cut, in place for two years, expired Jan. 1.
Analysts expect the Social Security tax increase to shave about a half-point off economic growth in 2013, since consumers drive about 70 percent of economic activity.
The hit to consumers is coming at a precarious moment for the economy. It contracted in the fourth quarter for the first time in 3 1/2 years. The decline was driven largely by a steep cut in defense spending and a drop in exports. Analysts generally think those factors will prove temporary and that the economy will resume growing.
Chrysler has great January
Chrysler’s U.S. sales jumped 16 percent last month as the company reported its best January in five years.
The automaker said today that it sold nearly 118,000 cars and trucks last month, a sign that last year’s momentum in U.S. auto sales is continuing into 2013.
Industry analysts are predicting that Americans bought new vehicles at a strong pace last month, a bright spot in the economic recovery.
Chrysler, the first major automaker to report sales today, estimates that total U.S. industry sales hit an annual rate of 15.5 million in January. If that holds for the rest of the year, automakers will sell 1 million more vehicles than in 2012, when sales rose 13 percent.