Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 353,000 in January, and the unemployment rate remained
at 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Employment declined in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry. …

The labor force participation rate, at 62.5 percent, was unchanged in January, and the employment population ratio, at 60.2 percent, was little changed. These measures showed little or no change over
the year. (See table A-1.)

In January, the number of people employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.4 million, changed
little. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time
because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)

The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job, at 5.8 million, was little
changed in January. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job. (See table A-1.)

[This looks very odd, but BLS is also changing its underlying estimates this month as part of its annual adjustments. That’s mainly in the Household survey, while the jobs-added number comes from the Establishment survey, but it’s all a bit up in the air. This is about twice what economists expected, and it comes with a significant jump in wages too, while hours worked actually declined a bit. I’d wait for next month’s report to see how all of these moving parts align in a clean report. One thing’s for sure — the Fed won’t cut rates while BLS produces numbers like this. — Ed]