WASHINGTON – One jobs report does not a trend make. That’s the general reaction to the poor jobs report released last week.
The Department of Labor reported just 20,000 jobs were added in February. That’s down sharply from analyst expectations of at least 175,000 new jobs. In January, 311,000 jobs were added, following December 2018’s 227,000.
Still, the unemployment rate declined slightly to 3.8%, while hourly earnings were up by 0.4% (and are up by 3.4% year over year).
“February job growth was surprisingly slow as employers added to payrolls at the slowest pace since September 2017,” said NAFCU’s chief economist, Curt Long. “One poor report should not set off alarm bells, but given that the labor market is the lynchpin for the entire economy, it does add to existing concerns and raises the stakes for next month’s report.”