Employment Up in January Despite Partial Shutdown

The U.S. labor market exceeded expectations by adding 304,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in January according to the Economic Situation Report released earlier this month, despite a 35-day long partial government shutdown that furloughed 380,000 federal workers and forced another 420,000 employees to work without pay.

Despite expectations, the partial shutdown had little impact on job growth, with last month’s growth surpassing January 2018’s increase of 223,000 jobs by 36 percent.

Last month, employment grew in several industries, including leisure and hospitality, construction, health care, and transportation and warehousing.