Despite the Omicron surge, nonfarm payrolls grew by 467,000 in January. Wall Street expected employers to add 150,000 new jobs.
While experts believed Omicron would put millions of workers on the sidelines, the economy brushed off the latest variant of COVID-19.
The Biden administration was quick to take a victory lap after it spent much of the past week bracing for anemic numbers.
We created 467,000 jobs in January. That’s more than 6.6 million jobs since I took office.
2021 was the greatest year of job creation under any president in history.
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 4, 2022
However, Fox Business’ Madison Alworth mentioned the salient point that some of the biggest red states have recovered all jobs lost during the pandemic.
WATCH:
CNBC reports:
The stunning gain came a week after the White House warned that the numbers could be low due to the pandemic.
Covid cases, however, have plunged nationally in recent weeks, with the seven-day moving average down more than 50% since peaking in mid-January, according to the CDC. Most economists had expected January’s number to be tepid due to the virus, though they were looking for stronger gains ahead.
Along with the big upside surprise for January, massive revisions sent previous months considerably higher.
December, which initially was reported as a gain of 199,000, went up to 510,000. November surged to 647,000 from the previously reported 249,000. For the two months alone, the initial counts were revised up by 709,000. The revisions came as part of the annual adjustments from the BLS that saw sizable changes for many of the months in 2021.
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