Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
Jobs in the US rose at the beginning of the year. When President Donald Trump returned to the White House, another sign of the job market was strong.
U.S. employers posted 7.7 million vacancy seats in January, the Labor Bureau reported Tuesday, up from 7.5 million. The outlook for the labor market is vague as Trump is fighting a trade war with foreign countries, removing federal workers and ousting millions of migrants.
Layoffs fell slightly in January, with the number of Americans leaving their jobs increasing.
Labor Bureau’s recruitment and labor turnover surveys showed an increase in openings for real estate, healthcare, manufacturing and construction companies. The federal agency has posted 135,000 jobs from 138,000 in December. The fallout from the government’s efficiency of billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of federal workers is not expected to appear in labor market data until at least the number comes out in February.
“These January data only included early days of federal workers’ Doge-inspired layoffs,” wrote Carol Weinberg and Mary Chen of High Frequency Economics in the commentary. “There is no evidence of federal layoffs in this report, which does not mean that federal workers’ size layoffs are not a major feature of the February report, scheduled to be released on April 1st.”
Weinberg and Chen said Tuesday’s Joltz report is unlikely to shake up the Federal Reserve from a careful approach to cutting interest rates this year. The Fed is expected to leave only the benchmark rate at next week’s meeting. “The (Fed) doesn’t find any reason to hurry up with the fees for data today,” they write. “At least the labor market doesn’t need that yet.”
The opening has declined from the peak of 12.2 million in March 2022, when the economy has returned from the Covid-19 lockdown, from 8.5 million cases in January 2024.
The American labor market has slowed from the enthusiastic employment of 2021-2023. Employers added 168,000 jobs a month in 2024, but added a record 603,000 jobs in 2021, starting from 216,000 in 2023, from 380,000 in 2022, and a record 603,000 in 2021.
They created 125,000 new jobs in January and 151,000 in February. The unemployment rate is 4.1% lower.
Original issue: March 11, 2025 10:11am EDT
