We're back now with some breaking economic numbers yeah new data shows the job growth that jumped by more than the expected in January with the U.S economy adding 517 000 jobs last month much more than expected the unemployment rate inching lower to 3.4 so a lot of people celebrating that news this morning and.
For more on this let's get straight to cnet's editor at large harness to Robbie thanks so much for being here this morning so what's your reaction to these major job numbers oh my gosh I wish I was a fly in the wall in Jerome Powell's house right now because I'm pretty sure he's doing a dance he is doing the dance guys uh this is exactly what I mean way.
Better than what probably he expected because even the best economists thought that we would see maybe 187 200 000 jobs added in January we saw uh two and a half times that so this is this I think just goes to show you nobody knows anything about why the job market is such an outlier amidst a really an economy that has been slowing quite.
Significantly since the FED it began its rate height campaign last spring I don't think this means that the fed's going to stop raising rates but I do think that we have to be patient and look at the jobs the jobs landscape as sort of its own it marches to its own beat it's not like we can expect a rate hike and then see it translate directly in these.
Monthly jobs reports because if you ask the average American they don't feel like a half a million jobs were added in January they don't feel like unemployment ticked low or anything they feel like I'm worried about losing my job I'm watching friends lose theirs it's really important to watch the layoffs Trend which is it takes time for.
That to show up in these monthly jobs reports so while we can celebrate today I think it's important to get back to reality and understand that layoffs are persisting and not just within the tech sector you know we thought that it was just going to be within technology that these layoffs would be more rampant but they are spreading to other Industries.
And so my advice to everybody who is looking at you know just the reality of the of the jobs picture and not these monthly figures but like what's happening at work in their neighborhoods is to take inventory of your finances expect that you may lose your job this year and what would happen and try to reverse engineer a plan I mean tough.
Tough reality there right two days ago foreigners I know the FED raised interest rates by a quarter point you reference that how do you think this jobs data will impact the central bank's rate hiking plans going forward I don't think again it's going to upend their plan I think that like we saw this week where they raised rates by a.
Quarter of a percent which was lower than previous rate hikes I think we're going to see one or two more of these in 2023. um the what I think it just it has to happen you know inflation is not yet at the two percent Benchmark rate that the FED wants to see and that we need to be basically be restabilized as an economy.
Um so we still have a lot of work to do on the inflation front and the only tool we have at this moment is to raise rates so I think the fed's going to continue with that but I think that you know we've been talking all last year about whether we're going to have a hard Landing or a soft Landing fingers crossed this may be an indicator if we.
Can really look into the January numbers and extrapolate this may indicate that we are in for a soft landing and that means that we won't have this very disruptive uh job market we won't have an upended job market in 2023 where we have what we saw in the last recession it's at its height of double-digit unemployment I don't think we're going.
To see that well some good news there you also mentioned Fed chair Jerome Powell maybe doing a happy dance right now well on Wednesday he was giving a press conference where he talked about unemployment along with the rate hike I want to play a little bit of sound from that let's listen I continue to think that there's a path.
To getting inflation back down to two percent without a really significant economic decline or a significant increase in unemployment and that's that's because this you know the setting we're in is quite different the the inflation that we originally got was very much a collision between very strong demand and hard Supply.
Constraints I wanted to get your response to what he said about the possibility of getting inflation down without a significant economic decline yeah I mean the real linchpin to calling a recession is is a an upside down job market which we haven't seen yet and so until that happens I don't see where we.
Can technically call this a recession we can technically say we've had a hard Landing so um I got my fingers crossed I think employers don't want to lay off people I mean this is think about if you're a business owner this is the last thing you want to do and I think companies are really trying to hold on and cut costs.
In other areas before they have to do what has been the inevitable for some of these bigger companies that over hired you know yeah all right our news to Robbie thanks so much for that insight thanks for watching our YouTube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the NBC News app
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