Ahead of today’s jobs report, the Trump admin unleashed a full court press to warn markets about what was expected to be a very weak numbers, with Peter Navarro saying “we have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like” and Kevin Hassett told CNBC on Monday to “expect slightly smaller job numbers” and that “one shouldn’t panic” if the labor data comes in weak. That’s also why the whisper number ahead of today’s jobs print was well below the consensus, at 35K vs 65K median consensus.
And so with markets and traders fully expecting a ugly print – with Bloomberg’s chief economist looking for a 0 January print – the BLS decided to shock everyone, and reported than in January the US added 130K jobs, double the 65K median estimate and up from a downward revised December print of 48K (vs 50K previously). This was also the highest monthly jobs increase since December 2024.
While today’s number was double the median consensus, here is some additional color: at 130K, the forecast was higher than 79 out of 80 forecasts, with just Citigroup’s 135K forecast higher.