Obama warns of 'ups and downs' in job market

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 200,000 in December, and the unemployment rate declined to 8.5% (the lowest rate in 3 years), continuing a downward trend. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for October was revised from +100,000 to +112,000, and the change for November was revised from +120,000 to +100,000 (which results in total increase of 192,000 with this report: 200,000 – 8,000 lost in revisions).

The U.S. labor market continued to add new jobs last month, but at a slower rate than economists had been hoping for.

The goldilocks economy continues as January nonfarm payrolls number comes in right as expected, or 157,000, a tiny miss to expectations of 165,000, down from the upwardly revised 196,000 (was 155,000 previously), leading to an unemployment rate of 7.9%, higher than the 7.8% expected. The seasonal adjustment for January was in line with expectations, or 2.120 million, as the actual decline in jobs December to January was a whopping 2.84 million. The NSA Birth/Death adjustment subtracted some 314K jobs in January.

U.S. President Barack Obama warned Congress against using the debt ceiling as leverage in the spending debate, saying “markets could go haywire” and government payments, from Social Security checks to military salaries, would be held up if the limit isn’t raised. Republican lawmakers “will not collect a ransom” if they refused to raise federal borrowing authority without delay, Obama said at a White House news conference. “These are bills that have already been racked up.”

By Kevin Mahn: On Friday, April 6, 2012, when U.S. markets were closed for the Good Friday holiday, the Department of Labor released a report indicating that U.S. companies added 120,000 new jobs in the prior month. While this would seem like positive news on the surface, it represented the first time in the last five months that less than 200,000 new jobs were created and fell significantly below the expectations of most economists who were expecting another increase of 200,000 + new jobs. U.S.