America’s employers added a substantial 311,000 jobs in February, fewer than January’s huge gain but enough to keep pressure on the federalreserve to raise interest rates aggressively to fight inflation.
March 13, 2023
Friday’s report from the government made clear that the nation’s job market remains fundamentally healthy, with many employers still eager to hire. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress this week that the Fed would likely ratchet up its rate hikes if signs continued to point to a robust economy and persistently high inflation. A strong job market typically leads businesses to raise pay and then pass their higher labor costs on to customers through higher prices.
With more potential hires to choose from, employers seem under less pressure now to dangle higher pay to attract or retain workers. Average wage growth slowed in February, rising just 0.2%, to $33.09, the smallest monthly increase in a year. Measured year over year, though, hourly pay is up 4.6%, well above the pre-pandemic trend. Even so, that’s down from average annual gains of about 5% last year.
“There’s clear signs of cooling when you dig deeper into the numbers,” said Mike Skordeles, head of economics at Truist, a bank. “I think it makes the case for the Fed to say … we’ll still hike rates, but we’re not going to do” a half-point hike.“Everything now hinges on February’s CPI report,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.
Much of that job growth reflects continuing demand from Americans who have been increasingly venturing out to shop, eat out, travel and attend entertainment events – activities that were largely restricted during the height of COVID. The stronger data reversed a cautiously optimistic narrative that the economy was cooling modestly _ just enough, perhaps, to tame inflation without triggering a deep recession. Now, the economic outlook is hazier.
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