The U.S. economy added an encouraging 243,000 new jobs in January, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and the official unemployment rate decreased to 8.3%, down from the 8.5% recorded for December of 2011.
The data includes 257,000 new private sector jobs, a sign that private-sector employers are gaining confidence in the economy. Economists had been forecasting job gains ranging from 125,000 to 155,000.
However, there is one piece of data that tempered the good news – the labor force participation rate dropped to 63.7%, a 30-year low.
Nevertheless, January’s official unemployment rate is the lowest since February of 2009, and it has dropped eight-tenths of a point since last August, when the rate was 9.1%.
Labor experts estimate that approximately 150,000 new jobs are needed each month just to keep up with changes in the labor market, and that about 250,000 new jobs are needed each month to quickly bring down the unemployment rate.
The January figures come two days after the Department of Labor reported a decline of 12,000 in the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits for the week that ended Jan. 28, and a lower four-week moving average of new jobless claims, which now stands at 375,750.
In January, job gains were reported in a variety of sectors, including 70,000 new business services jobs, 50,000 new manufacturing jobs, and 21,000 new jobs in construction.
The January report also follows an encouraging December 2011 jobs report, which originally said 200,000 new jobs were added. The Labor Department revised its employment data for November and December, indicating that 60,000 more new jobs were created in those two months than first reported.
The broader unemployment rate, which takes into account people looking for work and part-time workers who are seeking full-time work, dropped one-tenth of a point in January. It now stands at 15.1%.
