U.S. hiring cools in January; unemployment claims in California increase due to the fires
WASHINGTON — U.S. job growth slowed at the start of the year, the government said Friday, as business services, manufacturing and other major industries held back on adding new jobs amid increased uncertainty around the economy.
The exceptions were retail, healthcare and government, which accounted for almost all of the 143,000 net new jobs added last month. That’s still healthy growth, but lower than the 170,000 economists were expecting.
And both government and healthcare employers could soon feel the effects of the Trump administration’s moves to pare down federal payrolls and public aid that is critical for health services and social assistance.
The nation’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, dropped to 4% from 4.1% in December after the Bureau of Labor Statistics made statistical adjustments to reflect population and employment gains that were due largely to strong foreign migration.
The bureau said that neither the Southern California fires, which began Jan. 7, nor the severe winter weather in parts of the country had a significant effect on last month’s job numbers.
The labor impact from the fires, however, is likely to show up in California’s employment data for January. The state’s Employment Development Department said that as of Tuesday, workers had filed about 5,300 unemployment benefit claims linked to the fires. That’s about 10% of the total new claims filed statewide in the most recent week.
For months now, California has been lagging behind the nation in job growth, with hiring weakness in major sectors such as high tech and entertainment. The state’s unemployment rate for December was 5.5%, the second highest in the country behind Nevada, which was 5.7%. Los Angeles County’s jobless rate was 6% at the end of last year.
The EDD said the statewide jobs report for January won’t be released until March 17, later than usual for most months, due to a yearly review of the statistics using a wider array of information.
Friday’s national jobs report also showed that the U.S. added about 600,000 fewer jobs last year than previously reported. The adjusted figures show that the U.S. economy added, on average, 166,000 jobs a month last year, down from 216,000 in 2023.
Over the last year, job openings have fallen and fewer people are quitting their jobs. The outlook in the labor market has become more cloudy as the new administration has promised to increase tariffs, cut taxes and government regulations, and make mass deportations of immigrants who are in the country illegally.
“The job market still looks solid — and the largest threats to its steadiness are Trump’s plans to deport immigrants and raise tariffs,” said Harry Holzer, a labor economist and public policy professor at Georgetown University.
This article was originally published by a www.latimes.com . Read the Original article here. .