My Website Last Week's Economic News in Review January 24th, 2024 Construction spending kept expanding, and employment continued outpacing expectations, but jobless claims rose. Construction Spending Construction spending for December rose to an annual rate of $2.096 trillion, which was 0.9 percent above November's revised rate of $2.078 trillion, the Census Bureau reported last week. December's construction was nearly double the 0.5 percent increase that economists had forecasted for the month. That said, when compared to the same period a year ago, December's spending was 13.9 percent greater than December 2022's pace of $1.840 trillion. Turning to construction in the housing market, spending on residential construction in December grew to an annual rate of $911.7 billion, which was 1.4 percent above November's revised pace of $898.8 billion. Looking more closely, outlays on the construction of new, single-family homes in December rose to an annual rate of $427.4 billion, which was 1.6 percent over November's revised rate of $420.7 billion. Spending on the construction of new multi-family housing slightly ticked up to an annual rate of $135.9 billion in December, which was 0.3 percent above November's rate of $135.5 billion. Employment Situation U.S. employment continued surging in January, adding 353,000 non-farm jobs for the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week. January's job growth was far larger than the 185,000 jobs that economists had forecasted for the month. Key job areas that helped drive January's employment expansion were professional and business services, healthcare, retail, and social assistance. January's unemployment rate continued hovering at 3.7 percent, unchanged from November and December, with the population of unemployed Americans ticking down slightly to 6.1 million people from 6.3 million in December. The labor force participation rate - the number of Americans age 16 and older who are either employed or seeking employment - stayed at 62.5 percent in January, which was the same as in December. The news comes as the BLS also revised the total jobs added in 2023 from 2.7 million to 3.1 million, marking the strongest year for job growth since 1999. "Given the Fed now wants strong job growth ... this report should not discourage the Fed from cutting rates," FHN Financial chief economist Chris Low told the Reuters news service last week. "By the same token, however, it is not going to encourage them to rush into rate cutting." Initial Jobless Claims In layoffs news, first-time claims for unemployment benefits filed by recently unemployed Americans during the week ending January 27 grew to 224,000, which was 9,000 claims over the preceding week's revised total of 215,000 claims, the Employment and Training Administration reported last week. That total was much larger than the total of 214,000 claims that economists had forecasted for the week. Still, jobless claims continue to fall below the 300,000-claim level that economists consider an indicator of a growing job market. The four-week moving average - regarded as a more stable barometer of jobless claims - increased to 207,750 claims, which was 5,250 claims above the previous week's revised average of 202,500. This week, we can expect: Wednesday - Trade deficit for December from the Bureau of Economic Analysis; consumer credit for December from the Federal Reserve. Thursday - Initial jobless claims for last week from the Employment and Training Administration; wholesale inventories for December from the Census Bureau. Please drop me an email or call if you have any questions - or someone you know is in need of expert advice. I love to help those you care about. If you have a referral please send me an email or give me a call. Your referrals are the heart of my business.