Economic Insights from Patrick J. O’Keefe on January 2012 Labor Report
2/03/2012
On February 3, the U.S. Department of Labor released the January 2012 employment report, which revealed that the unemployment rate fell for the fifth straight month. The Labor Department says employers added 243,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent from 8.5 percent in December, the lowest in three years.
Patrick J. O’Keefe, J.H. Cohn’s director of economic research, is speaking to several media outlets about the data. In the Financial Times, he said, “Households have been reporting good gains for some time now. It will bolster consumer confidence and that will feed back into the economy.” He also cautioned that the labor market is “still one of the strong weaklings on the playground,” noting that “the proportion of the working age population that have jobs remained flat…job growth is keeping pace with population growth but is not much stronger.”
On WCBS 880 News Radio, Pat said, “Good news but still not sufficient to move us forward.” When asked about what’s needed to significantly move the unemployment rate lower, he added, “We need to see an acceleration in the demands for goods and services, which has been improving, but improving gradually. We also need employers to gain confidence that the recovery is sustainable and therefore it makes sense for them to hire more workers. Click here to listen to the interview from WCBS 880 New Radio.
In advance of the report’s release, on Wall Street Journal Radio, Pat emphasized, “Slow growth is still positive growth, and it’s better than no growth.”