The job market still strong in the United States, wages are still climbing

The employment market remains very solid in the United States, according to several surveys published two days before the official figures, probably too much in the eyes of the American central bank since the continuous rise in wages prevents inflation from slowing down rapidly.

Private sector companies alone created 242,000 jobs in February, according to the monthly ADP/Stanford Lab survey released Wednesday, more than the 205,000 anticipated by analysts, according to the MarketWatch consensus, but also than the 119,000 in January.

This robust level of hiring “is good for the economy and workers, but wage growth is still quite high,” commented Nela Richardson, chief economist at business services firm ADP.

The rise in wages was 7.2% over one year for those who kept their jobs, the lowest in the last 12 months. For those who changed jobs, wages rose 14.3% year on year, from 14.9% in January.

“The slight slowdown in wage growth, on its own, should not be able to bring down inflation quickly in the short term,” said Nela Richardson.

Because this means slowing down economic activity, which the American central bank (Fed) has been trying to do by raising its rates for a year, to increase the cost of credit and discourage households from consuming.

The effects, however, have so far been limited.

In January, ADP figures showed that the weather had slowed private job creation but that the labor market had remained solid.

This good health had been confirmed by official figures, between a rebound in job creation (517,000) and a falling unemployment rate, at its lowest since 1969 at 3.4%.

Official figures for February will be released on Friday. The unemployment rate is expected to be stable, and job creations half as high as in January (225,000 expected).

– Availablity –

In addition, there were 10.8 million vacancies at the end of January, or 410,000 less than at the end of December, according to data published by the Labor Department, also on Wednesday.

During the first month of the year, 3.9 million resignations were registered. The historic record was reached in November 2021, with 4.5 million resignations.

This “is consistent with a slowing labor market,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist of the job site ZipRecruiter, on Twitter.

But, if these figures show “that job creations are going in the right direction for the Fed”, “the decline is far too modest” to convince the institution that this will be enough, commented Matthew Martin, economist for Oxford Economics. , in a footnote.

Technicians work on infrastructure at a power plant in Houston, Texas on June 10, 2022 (GETTY/AFP/Archives – Brandon Bell)

“Workers continue to feel confident regarding finding new employment, while employers are reluctant to fire workers they initially struggled to find,” he adds.

The Fed also released its Beige Book on Wednesday, a survey conducted in late January and February of businesses in the country, which highlighted “remained solid” conditions in the labor market.

Thus, “employment continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace in most regions despite hiring freezes by some companies and scattered reports of layoffs,” it says.

Nevertheless, while the United States has been experiencing a worker shortage for regarding two years, “labour availability has improved slightly”, although “finding workers with the desired skills or experience remains difficult”.

As for wages, they “generally increased at a moderate pace”, but some regions “noted that wage pressures had eased somewhat”.