US adds 49,000 jobs in January

Washington, Feb 6 : US employers added just 49,000 jobs in January, after slashing some 227,000 jobs the previous month, the Labour Department reported.
In a report issued on Friday, the Department said that the unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell by 0.4 percentage point to 6.3 per cent in January, still well above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 per cent in February 2020, reports Xinhua news agency.
In January, job gains in professional and business services and in both public and private education were offset by losses in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, health care, transportation and warehousing, the report showed.
The number of permanent job losers stood at 3.5 million, changing little in January, but 2.2 million higher than in February, according to the report.
Amid widespread Covid-19 shutdowns in March and April 2020, 22 million Americans lost their jobs.
Despite improvement, the US labour market’s recovery has been stalled in recent months amid surging Covid-19 cases.