WASHINGTON (AP)—U.S. employers stepped up hiring last month, adding a healthy 227,000 jobs, and more Americans began looking for work, a sign that President Donald Trump has inherited a robust job market.
January’s job growth was the best since September, and it exceeded last year’s average monthly gain of 187,000, the Labor Department said Friday.
The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent in December. But the rate rose for an encouraging reason: More Americans started looking for work, though not all of them found jobs immediately. The proportion of adults who are either working or looking for work reached its highest point since September.
Friday’s report depicted an American job market that is generating consistently solid hiring and encouraging more people to start looking for work. Nearly a half-million people who weren’t previously job-hunting began doing so in January.
If employers keep hiring, even more Americans could be drawn into the job market.
“The increase in the unemployment rate came about from both more people working and more people looking for work _ a positive,’’ said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC.
Yet some of the economy’s softness remains: Average hourly wages _ a weak spot since the Great Recession ended 71/2 years ago—barely rose last month. And the number of people working part time who would prefer full-time work rose.
Still, even the sluggish wage gain contains a silver lining: It suggests that employers are attracting qualified job seekers who were previously on the sidelines. If employers regarded those people as unemployable, they would likely have to further raise pay to attract people who already have jobs.
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