February Jobs Report: US Job Growth Remains Strong

The repeat performance is further evidence that four years into the pandemic, America’s jobs engine is far from running out of steam.

“We expected a slowdown in the labor market, a more material easing of conditions, but we’re just not seeing that,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

Six months ago, economists forecast much more modest employment growth, with employment concentrated in a few industries. But while some industries bloated by the pandemic have cut jobs, expected declines in sectors like construction have not materialized. Rising wages, attractive benefits and more flexible work schedules have brought millions of workers off the sidelines, while increased immigration increases the labor supply.

That doesn’t mean the employment landscape looks rosy for everyone. Employee confidence, such as measured by the business rating website Glassdoor, has been steadily declining as layoffs by tech and media companies made headlines. This is especially true for white-collar professions such as human relations and consulting, while professions that require in-person work – such as healthcare, construction and manufacturing – are more optimistic.

“It’s a two-track labor market,” said Aaron Terrazas, Glassdoor’s chief economist. “For skilled workers in risk-intensive sectors, anyone who has been laid off is having difficulty finding a new job, while for workers or frontline services it is still competitive.”

The past few months have been littered with strong, industry-leading economic data analysts surveyed of the National Association for Business Economics to raise their expectations for gross domestic product and lower their expectations for the trajectory of unemployment. It happened even as inflation was easing, leading the Federal Reserve to telegraph its plans for rate cuts sometime this year, further raising growth expectations.

Mervin Jebaraj, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas, helped map out the survey responses. He said the mood was helped in part by waning concerns about the federal government shutdown and draconian budget cuts, after several close calls since the fall. And he sees no clear reason why the recovery will end anytime soon.

“Once it starts going, it keeps going,” Mr. Jebaraj said. “You had this external stimulus with all these trillions of dollars of government spending. Now it’s kind of self-sustaining even though the money is gone.”