Salary Struggle

The 227,000 new jobs created in January were excellent as was the rise in the unemployment rate to 4.8% from 4.7% due to the rise in the labor force participation rate from 62.7% to 62.9%. But, December wage growth was revised down from 0.4% to 0.2% and January’s was just 0.1%. The general trend remains strong and the current weakness is due to recent faster growth in lower paying jobs.