The economy added 243,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%.
The Labor Department said large gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing jobs drove the gains, which came in well above most analysts’ estimates.
Analysts surveyed by Econoday expected 135,000 new jobs in January with a range of estimates between 110,000 and 189,000.
The unemployment rate is down from 9.1% in August. Private-sector employment rose by 257,000 jobs in January, while government jobs declined by 14,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. For 2011, governments shed 276,000 jobs at the local and state level.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.