U.S. non farm payroll showed another strong result as 257K jobs were added in January, according to recent report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Market expectations and the ADP report were at 236K and 213K, respectively, for January. According to the latest U.S. employment report, the main sectors that grew were in retail trade, construction, health care, financial activities, and manufacturing. The rate of unemployment inched up to 5.7%. Gold and silver fall.
The chart below presents the revised figures of the added number of non-farm employees in the labor market in past years (up to January 2014). The non-farm payroll in December and November were sharply revised up by a total of 147K than previously reported. This revision comes after the December report initially showed a gain of 252K jobs.
In January, the rate of U.S. unemployment slightly increased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.7%. The current unemployment rate is 0.9 percent points lower than its rate in January 2014.
Moreover, the number of unemployed persons (8.979 million) rose by 291K in January compared to the previous month. A closer look reveals that the civilian labor force grew by 696K. So there was a rise in both the number of unemployed and the number of people participating in the labor force; the participation rate slightly increased to 62.9%.
Finally, wages also picked up – the hourly earnings rose by 12 cents to $24.75 per hour, which is 2.2% higher than the same month last year. The rise in annual growth in wages is voting well for the progress of the U.S. labor market.
Following this news, the U.S dollar appreciated against the Euro and Yen; crude oil price rallied; the U.S stock market indexes also picking up; gold and silver prices tumble down.
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