Unemployment Edges Up but Still Is Low --- Slowing Economy Takes Toll, But Data Show Weather Is Playing a Bigger Role
WASHINGTON -- America's extraordinarily low unemployment rate is beginning to feel pressure from the sharp economic slowdown, but not enough to prove the entire economy has followed manufacturing into recession.</br></br>The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2% in January, its highest level since September 1999 but only a bit above the near-30-year low of 4% in December, the Department of Labor said Friday. In January, the labor pool expanded faster than the number of new jobs that were created.</br></br>Payrolls outside of farming jumped 268,000 in January, adjusted for seasonal variation, well above what economists expected, and a big improvement over the tiny increase of 19,000 jobs in December. That increase was revised down sharply from an original estimate of 105,000. The January data suggest that employment, especially in construction where 145,000 jobs were added, had been unusually depressed by bad weather in December.</br></br>The report was the first comprehensive look at the entire economy for January. Previous reports had found that the industrial sector's decline accelerated during the month, and the payroll report provided further confirmation. Manufacturing jobs sank by 65,000, bringing total losses in that sector to 254,000 since June. But employment in retail trade, government and other services rose 183,000.</br></br>"It's clear you have a dichotomy between manufacturing and the rest of the economy," said Michael Prell, an economic consultant in Arlington, Va., noting that service-sector employment would have been higher but for the loss of jobs at temporary-help agencies, many of which were actually at manufacturing companies.