- A new Labor Department report shows U.S. employers added 130,000 new jobs in January.
- The jobs increase far exceeds pre-report projections of around 55,000 new positions.
- President Trump renewed his call for the Fed to cut interest rates.
The U.S. labor market blew past job growth expectations to kick off the new year with employers adding a robust 130,000 new positions in January, according to a Labor Department report Wednesday.
Alongside the surprise jobs numbers — the highest monthly total in over a year — federal tracking found the average unemployment rate across the country ticked down to 4.3%, dropping 0.1% from December.
Non-farm employment growth easily outpaced the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 55,000 new jobs for the month. The biggest gains showed up in health care, social assistance and construction, according to the report, while federal government and financial services businesses saw shrinking employee rolls.
Job gains for health care, social services and construction sectors came in at 82,000, 42,000 and 33,000 respectively while the federal government saw the biggest job losses for the month at minus 34,000.
President Donald Trump celebrated the new jobs data in a social media posting and renewed his calls for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.
“GREAT JOBS NUMBERS, FAR GREATER THAN EXPECTED!,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “The United States of America should be paying MUCH LESS on its Borrowings (BONDS!). We are again the strongest Country in the World, and should therefore be paying the LOWEST INTEREST RATE, by far.”
The U.S. employment sector begins the year well ahead of 2025’s average monthly job gains, which saw a further downward adjustment in the latest report, as did 2024 data.
Overall job growth for 2024 was revised down from 2 million to 1.2 million new jobs while 2025’s 12-month growth was reduced from nearly 600,000 to 181,000 new jobs for the year, an average of just over 15,000 per month.
While Trump cited the new jobs data to support his call for the Fed to make further cuts to its benchmark rate, the U.S. central bank’s policy-setting Open Market Committee voted to hold rates steady at its first meeting of the year in late January.
What’s going on with interest rates?
The Fed closed out 2025 with three straight reductions to its benchmark federal funds rate, moves aiming to bolster what was a lagging U.S. jobs market even as inflation continued to run well above the U.S. central bank’s 2% target rate. Both sides of the monetary body’s dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability have been under threat amid recent economic conditions.
Generally speaking, rate reductions help spur economic activity by reducing the cost of debt which can promote business activities like investment and hiring. Rate hikes, which increase the cost of consumer and commercial debt, quell spending and help slow down inflationary price increases.
The trio of rate reductions late last year were driven by the Fed’s decision to prioritize the labor side of its two-part mandate.
At a Jan. 28 press conference after the Fed’s first policy meeting of 2026, chairman Jerome Powell pointed to positive indicators as the primary rationale behind the committee’s decision to pause on any further rate adjustments.
“If you look at the incoming data since the last meeting, (there is) clear improvement in the outlook for growth,” Powell said. “Inflation performed about as expected, and ... some of the labor market data came in suggesting evidence of stabilization. So it’s overall, a stronger forecast, really.”
Latest on Utah’s job sector
The most recent reporting from the Utah Department of Workforce Services pegged the average statewide unemployment rate at 3.6% in December, matching November’s rate. Utah employers added over 21,000 new positions in 2024, according to DWS tracking.
“Utah’s economy remains ahead of the U.S. in job expansion and low unemployment,” Ben Crabb, chief economist with the Department of Workforce Services, said in a statement late last month. “The low unemployment rate indicates the state’s labor market remains strong. However, the decline in the labor force participation rate and the employment-to-population ratio points to fewer people working or looking for work, suggesting some workers are stepping away as the job market cools.”