Private payrolls soar in January, the best monthly gain in nearly 5 years

CNBC ^ | February 05, 2020 | Jeff Cox

[Hojczyk]

The jobs market kicked off 2020 in grand fashion, adding 291,000 in private payrolls for the best monthly gain since May 2015, according to a report Wednesday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics.

That was well above the 150,000 estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones and more evidence that the U.S. still is a good distance from full employment even with the jobless rate at its lowest point in more than 50 years. The total also was a sharp gain from the 199,000 in December, which was revised down 3,000 from the initial count.

The ADP count comes two days ahead of the government’s more closely watched nonfarm payrolls report, which includes government jobs that ADP does not count. Job growth likely came in at 158,000 compared with the initially reported 145,000 in December, according to Dow Jones estimates. The unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.5%, the lowest since December 1969.

Economists occasionally will adjust their numbers to reflect the ADP estimate, though the two counts can differ substantially on a month-to-month basis, as they did in December when ADP’s figure was well ahead of what the Labor Department reported.

Weather helps

“It’s juiced by very mild winter weather,” said Mark Zandi. “The fingerprints of that are all over this report.”

Leisure and hospitality and construction are both weather-sensitive and got boosts from the higher than normal temperatures and low precipitation.

[Hojczyk]

Zandi is a Trump hater...but the weather does have an effect but not that much...

I would think January would be a lot slower because of the temp holiday layoffs

[billyboy15]

“Zandi is a Trump hater...but the weather does have an effect but not that much...”

You are absolutely correct. Sure the weather has been milder this Winter but a difference in avg temp of 10 to even 15% is not sending anyone scurrying to the beaches or anywhere else.

As you mentioned Zandi hates Trump and like the rest of the haters will make up any excuse in order to deprive our President of the credit he deserves.

One of Trumps greatest sins in the eyes of the Left is how awful he has made them look by all his accomplishments in just 3 yrs. He has outed them all and on both sides of the aisle as useless gas bags unworthy of even shining DJT’s shoes.