WASHINGTON–Last week’s jobs report indicates a “softening trend” in employment, according to a credit union economist. Other economists said the newest numbers were obsolete at the time they were released because they don’t reflect government layoffs.
The United States added 151,000 jobs in February, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics missed expectations for 170,000 new roles, although February’s job gains exceeded the revised 125,000 posted in January. The unemployment rate climbed slightly to 4.1% from 4.0% the month before.
America’s Credit Unions Senior Economist Dawit Kebede called the 151,000 jobs added a “solid pace of growth.”
“However, the outlook shows a softening trend. January job numbers were revised downward, and the unemployment rate rose by one-tenth of a percentage point,” said Kebede “Federal government jobs declined by 10,000. The data doesn’t fully capture recent layoffs in both the government and private sectors, as it only includes information up to mid-month. The impact of these layoffs will likely become clearer in the next report.
“People are more likely to restrict spending if there is uncertainty about their jobs,” Kebede continued. “A continued rise in the unemployment rate can affect credit union members’ ability to afford new loans or make timely payments on existing ones.”
Where Jobs Were Added
The BLS data shows health care employers added 52,000 roles in February, financial services firms added 21,000, and transportation and warehousing companies added 18,000. But that’s an incomplete picture, noted one person.
“The survey period for this report is around the 12th of the month,” Mark Hamrick, Bankrate senior economic analyst, said in a statement that was reported by NBC News. “Much has happened since then,” he said, pointing to the 62,000 federal job cut announcements flagged Thursday by the consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
‘Snapshot of Prior Age’
Similarly, Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, all but dismissed the BLS report as “a snapshot of a prior age, before the shift in federal government policies undermined confidence,” according to NBC News.
Still, analysts broadly sounded a note of measured relief, NBC News added, as there had been concerns deeper problems might have been seen in the data.