The U.S. added 517,000 jobs last month, smashing Wall Street estimates, while the unemployment rate fell to 3.4 percent, its lowest level since May 1969, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. But the "astonishingly strong" report may present the Federal Reserve, who only just slightly slowed its aggressive, inflation-fighting interest rate increases, with a bit of a challenge. "Despite the Federal Reserve's efforts to slow the economy to cool inflation, the labor market just refuses to quit." A useful summary of the jobs report. "But with each new batch of labor market data, those prospects seem to dwindle."

Source: New York Times February 03, 2023 22:56 UTC