The jobs market came in with a nice surprise in January with 467K jobs being added to the economy, well above the 125K that was expected. Further, revisions to prior months added another 709K jobs, showing that hiring momentum was actually stronger than thought over the past couple months.
The participation rate increased slightly to 62.2%, and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.0% from 3.9%.
Productivity jumped significantly in the fourth quarter, rising 6.6%, which was well above the 3.2% increase that was expected. While productivity has been notoriously volatile lately, the upward move is still welcome.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, had a wild week after falling over 25% on Thursday following their earnings call where they cautioned the potential size of the revenue damage Apple’s privacy changes may cause, forcing investors to reevaluate the growth prospects of the company.
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