A hiring sign is posted on the door of a Taco Bell in Alexandria, Virginia, on Aug. 22, 2024.
Anna Rose Layden | Getty Images
The U.S. labor market likely began 2025 in solid fashion, in a bit of a step down from where it closed the previous year.
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its nonfarm payrolls count for January, it is projected to show growth of 169,000, down from 256,000 in December, but nearly in line with the past three-month average. The unemployment rate is projected to stay at 4.1%, according to the Dow Jones consensus for the report, which will be out Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
While the takeaway could be that job creation is slowing, the broader view is that the employment picture is holding solid, and it’s not likely to be a problem for the Federal Reserve any time in the near future.
“With inflation at least for now at tolerable levels and firms very comfortable making sustained investment, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t continue to see job growth around 150,000 per month, which is the upper end of what’s needed to keep the labor market stable,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. “In other words, we’re at full employment. This is a good problem to have.”
By the time the Fed concluded its final three meetings of 2024, it had cut its key borrowing rate by a full percentage point. In good part, this was because policymakers sought to support a labor market that showed signs of weakening.
However, recent indicators show that while hiring has leveled off, layoffs aren’t increasing and workers aren’t quitting, though job openings are on the decline.
Such relative stability is a welcome sign with the likelihood that the Fed will be on hold, possibly until summer, while officials wait to see the fallout of President Donald Trump‘s fiscal agenda that includes aggressive tariffs against the largest U.S. trading partners.
“The economy is still going to roll on, people are going to make investment decisions, they’re going to get up each morning and go to work,” Brusuelas said.
Annual revisions to take focus
Though the usual payroll number is expected to show more or less status quo conditions, markets also will be watching annual benchmark revisions to both the establishment and household surveys that the BLS compiles.
When the initial revisions were released in August 2024, they showed a stunning 818,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported in the establishment count from April 2023 to March 2024. That total is expected to come down considerably as adjustments are made for immigration and population.
The revisions also are projected to show a record increase of 3.5 million in the population and 2.3 million in household employment, according to Goldman Sachs. The firm sees more modest adjustments upward in labor force participation and unemployment.
The two BLS surveys have differed sharply in the post-Covid years. The establishment survey is used to calculate the nonfarm payrolls number while the BLS derives the unemployment rate from the household count. The latter has shown a less optimistic view of employment conditions that could be corrected with the revisions.
In any event, if the report comes in anywhere near expectations, it’s unlikely to move the needle for the Fed even with the tariff question lingering.
“The labor market is a lot more important to the Fed than what’s going on with tariffs,” said Eric Winograd, director of developed market economic research at AllianceBernstein. “The payrolls numbers are volatile. Anything can happen in any given month. But there’s nothing in particular that makes me think that this month’s print will look meaningfully different than the past few, and that’s enough to keep the Fed on hold.”
In addition to the headline payroll numbers and revisions, the BLS will also release data on average hourly earnings.
The estimate is for January to show a 0.3% increase in wages and a 3.7% 12-month increase. If the annual figure is correct, it will be the lowest level since July 2024.
