January Nonfarm Payrolls

January Nonfarm Payrolls
Updated: 11-Feb-26 09:24 ET

Highlights

For the month of January, the indicators—payrolls, unemployment rate, average hourly earnings, and average workweek—all contained positive surprises.

Key Factors

January nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 (Briefing.com consensus: 68,000). The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls increased to 73,000 from -17,000. December nonfarm payrolls revised to 48,000 from 50,000. November nonfarm payrolls revised to 41,000 from 56,000.
January private sector payrolls increased by 172,000 (Briefing.com consensus: 60,000). December private sector payrolls revised to 64,000 from 37,000. November private sector payrolls revised to 72,000 from 50,000.
January unemployment rate was 4.3% (Briefing.com consensus: 4.4%) versus 4.4% in December. Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 25.0% of the unemployed versus 26.0% in December. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, decreased to 8.0% from 8.4% in December.
January average hourly earnings were up 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus: 0.3%) versus a downwardly revised 0.1% increase (from 0.3%) in December. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 3.7%, unchanged from the 12 months ending in December.
The average workweek in January was 34.3 hours (Briefing.com consensus: 34.2) versus 34.2 hours in December. The manufacturing workweek increased 0.1 hour to 40.0 hours. Factory overtime was unchanged at 2.9 hours.
The labor force participation rate increased to 62.5% from 62.4% in December.
The employment-population ratio increased to 59.8% from 59.7% in December.

Big Picture

The key takeaway from the report is that it is a positive sign for the U.S. growth outlook, yet it may come with the cost of foregoing an additional rate cut by the Fed, at least in the near future.