The labor market shattered expectations in January as the economy added 517,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent, a low not seen since May 1969, according to data released Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Washington Post reported. Job gains had been steadily dropping for months, but January’s stunning job growth reflects unexpected tightness in the labor market, even amid fears of a looming recession as high-profile layoffs spread across the tech industry. The Federal Reserve has been making an all-out effort to lower inflation, hoping it can manage to hoist interest rates to slow the labor market without undercutting all of its strength. But that task appears much more difficult to pull off, with scant signs of a cool-down in a labor market that created more than a half-million jobs in January. The job gains were spread across a wide swath of industries, particularly those that provide services, with the largest increases in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care. The economy added more than 128,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality in January, with the largest gains in bars and restaurants. Professional and business services created 82,000 jobs. And employment in health care rose by 58,000 jobs, reflecting the aging population and a backlog of demand for care as the economy emerges from its coronavirus lockdown.
