The BLS employment report for February is very underwhelming with a mere 20,000 new jobs calculated and results that fall far short of expectations. The recent private sector ADP payroll report showed 183,000 gains. Despite the low reported jobs gains, the national unemployment number dropped to 3.8%.

Further confounding the low February BLS calculations, revisions to December and January were upward. December’s jobs were revised up from +222,000 to +227,000 (gaining 5k), and the change for January was revised up from +304,000 to +311,000 (+7k). With these revisions, employment gains in December and January combined were 12,000 more than previously reported. Job gains now average 186,000 per month over the last three months.

On a very positive note the calculated wage growth continues to reflect a tight labor market where employers are increasing wages well beyond inflation. “In February, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 11 cents to $27.66, following a 2-cent gain in January. Over the year, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.4 percent.” That is the strongest sustained wage growth in a decade.

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“Aside from the headline number, this is a solid report for wages that gained +0.11. That brings them to +3.4 year-over-year and the labor participation rate held steady at 63.2 after the recent gains,” Wall Street analyst Tim Anderson at TJM Investments, said.

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Jobs Report: Most Important Highlight

Non-Supervisory Wages continue to surge and outpace overall wage increases

This is amazing news for all Americans#Winning pic.twitter.com/FBGnPXPgHo — Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) March 8, 2019