US job growth exceeded expectations in January, while unemployment dropped to 4.3 per cent, despite concerns over Trump’s policies
US job growth beat expectations in January while unemployment crept down, official data showed on Wednesday, defying immediate concerns about labour market fragility on the back of US President Donald Trump’s economic policies.
The United States added 130,000 jobs last month, the Department of Labour said, significantly higher than the 55,000 predicted in surveys by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
The jobless rate dropped to 4.3 per cent from 4.4 per cent in December.
But revisions to 2025 figures also indicated that the world’s largest economy added significantly fewer jobs than earlier estimated for all of last year, averaging 15,000 per month rather than 49,000.
Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi warned this week that Trump’s economic policies have driven a “dramatic slowdown in job growth” overall.
A part of this is due to highly restrictive immigration policy – hitting labour supply – while labour demand has also been impacted as tariffs and government job cuts take a toll on industries.
Source: News - South China Morning Post
