Welcome to the Jill on Money Show, it's Saturday, February 4th, and boy oh boy do we get

a doozy of an employment report better than expected, there was something for everyone.

There were 517,000 jobs created, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.4%, that's the lowest

level since May of 1969, and the previous two months were revised higher, the whole year

of 2022 was revised somewhat higher, we had monthly job creation last year, 401,000, and

517,000 in January, it smoked the expectations, analysts were thinking there were going to

be 175,000, maybe 200,000 jobs, and we get 517, so what happened? I mean there was widespread

job growth, leisure and hospitality added 128,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality has now recaptured

94% of the jobs that lost during COVID, it's amazing, professional and business services

adding 82,000 health care, 58,000, there was just one little one-off category that that helped,

but you know not going to be repeated was a 74,000 increase in government employment that was

partially due to the end of a university strike in California, but you know it was like

everything seemed to be pointing up, even temporary services which had been falling steadily since

last March, now adding positions, so I don't know it's a head scratcher, certainly does give

credence to the Fed raising rates and why they raised rates, thinking that job growth still remains

pretty strong, from the Fed's perspective I think the good news here is that wages or wage growth

has started to decelerate, and you know that's important because we really have to be careful

about wage growth because as it creeps up we have more money in our pockets, well then don't you

worry about a thing we're going to go spend that money and that can contribute to inflation,

look it was it was good it was a good report, I think the Fed's going to probably keep going with

rate hikes at least another quarter of a percentage point in March maybe more after that we'll have

to see, and also got a way to see whether the inflation data start to improve even more, with that

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