First we had 2 consecutive quarters of GDP growth. Now, UE ticks down a bit to 9.7%. Good to hear. When the infrasctruture projects kick in, maybe it will go under 9%.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The U.S. economy lost 20,000 jobs in January, but the unemployment rate fell to 9.7%, according to a government report released Friday.
The Labor Department said the economy continued to shed jobs, even as economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected a net gain of 15,000 jobs in December.
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The unemployment rate fell to 9.7% in January, much lower than economists' forecasts of 10%. It is the lowest rate since August.
The Labor Department also released an annual revision of U.S. payrolls on Friday, using data that wasn't initially available. Losses for 2009 alone came to 4.8 million jobs, more than 600,000 more than previously estimated. The revision showed the economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007 -- 1.4 million more job losses than initially reported.
The payroll number for December was revised to a net loss of 150,000 jobs. The government had previously indicated that 85,000 jobs were lost in December.
But the government said the tepid job growth initially reported in November was actually much stronger than previously believed. Jobs rose by 64,000 in November, up from an initial estimate of 4,000. It is the only month in the past two years in which jobs grew.
Most of the job losses were in the hard-hit construction industry, which shed another 75,000 jobs in January. The transportation and financial industries also lost in excess of 10,000 jobs, and the government shed a net 8,000 positions in January.
The jobs report wasn't all bad, as there was job growth in many areas, including the manufacturing industry, which created 11,000 jobs last month. The services industry was the biggest jobs creator, with a net gain of 48,000 jobs, 42,100 of which came from the retail sector.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign from January's report was that 44,000 jobs were created in the business services industry, which includes administrators and temporary workers. Economists see professional services as a proxy for overall economic activity, and many employers hire temporary workers before signing on new full-time staff.
The so-called under-employment rate fell to 16.5% last month from from 17.3% in December. The under-employment rate measures the percentage of Americans who were unable to find jobs with the amount of hours they want to work, as well as those without jobs who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work.
Workers were also working longer hours: The hourly work week rose by an average of 6 minutes to 33.9 hours in January. With a modest 4-cent gain in the average hourly salary, the average weekly paycheck rose by $1.36 to $761.06.
Unemployment @ 9.7%
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