January Unemployment Rate Points to a Steady U.S. Economy
The U.S. Department of Labor released payroll figures for the month of January today. In January, employers added a total of 157,000 workers to their payrolls. This is roughly in line with the consensus estimate of 160,000 jobs to be added; however, the overall unemployment rate did tick up to 7.9% from the prior month’s reading of 7.8%. The good news in the numbers released by the Labor Department came in the form of upward revisions in the jobs numbers for the previous two months of November and December. There were 127,000 more jobs created in those months than originally…