January Employment Report

The US economy added 157,000 jobs in January according news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly in line with Wall Street estimates. However, you have to scroll to the last paragraph to find the surprising news.

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised from +161,000 to +247,000, and the change for December was revised from +155,000 to +196,000.

Despite talks of fiscal cliff, the average jobs added in the last two months of the year came to 220k. This is fairly impressive by the standard of a slowly growing economy. During the turning points in labor market, the jobs report tends to underestimate the addition and subtraction to the jobs market. We could be at such a point and the labor market appears to be strengthening.