"This was a real wild card, given the uncertain impact of the Omicron wave," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said."These data, and probably February's too, will always be asterisked; they tell us nothing about the underlying state of the labor market."
Small businesses bore the brunt of the decline. The group – consisting of firms with fewer than 50 employees – lost 144,000 jobs in January, according to the report. Businesses with 50 to 499 employees lost 59,000 payrolls, and companies with more than 500 workers saw payrolls drop by 98,000.
Private sector jobs are much better than govt sector
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