USA added 235000 jobs in February, unemployment rate drops to 4.7 percent

Payroll services firm ADP Inc., which compiles its own monthly employment report based on its customers’ statistics, gave a much higher figure for February job gains than the government. Instead of a blowout, we got a repeat from the previous month of a solid maintenance-plus performance, but not an indication of breakout job creation.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted: “Great news for American workers: economy added 235,000 new jobs, unemployment rate drops to 4.7 percent in first report for @POTUS Trump”.

Further employment in manufacturing increased by 28,000 in the month of February.

Trump supporters are calling the jobs growth part of a “Trump rally” spurred by a pro-business agenda that includes promises to overhaul the tax code, dramatically reduce regulations and repeal and replace ObamaCare.

But Trump spoke very differently about the jobs numbers in past years.

The economy has added nearly half a million jobs in the first two months of 2017, the best back-to-back performance since last summer.

While Trump will certainly take credit for the economy’s positive momentum, Allianz chief economic advisor Mohamed El-Erian told Benzinga Trump’s actual impact on the economy is a bit unclear.

The prime-age participation rate, which covers people ages 25 to 54, is a measure that Trump had previously highlighted as deteriorating under President Barack Obama. “January jobs were up sharply giving us a good start on the New Year”.

The unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.7 percent, even as more people entered the labor market, encouraged by the hiring spree.

The latest numbers represent the 77th straight month of job growth.

Average hourly pay rose 2.8 percent year over year in February, a decent gain though slightly below historical averages.

Brantford had the lowest unemployment rate in Canada at 4.2%, while Calgary remained at the top end at 9.4%.

Minimum wage increases a year ago in 17 states and Washington, D.C., helped raise pay among the lowest-paid workers, the EPI found. If you look at one of the essential groups of workers in our economy, public school teachers, we have fewer than we did when the recession began.

At the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday, the Fed is likely to raise interest rates for the third time since the recovery.

The number of people out of the labor force, a figure repeatedly highlighted by Trump as a sign of economic malaise, fell by 176,000 to 94.2 million. More recently, however, the decline has paused – the participation rate has been more or less flat for the past year. “The longer that stays around, yes, you’d expect it to matriculate into some hard data, including labor market data”.

According to economists, wage growth of between 3 percent and 3.5 percent is needed to lift inflation to the Fed’s 2 percent target.