Despite the government shutdown, the jobs report was positive for January.
Businesses Editor Murray Feldman reports that 304,000 jobs were created last month. The jobless rate rose from 3.9% to 4.0%, but Feldman reports this was mostly due to the government shutdown, as contractors who were off the job and did not get paid due to the shutdown were counted among the unemployed.
Area Congressman Tim Walberg was rather pleased with the report. “Fabulous. If you look at it, it’s a little better than last month’s numbers and they said that this month it’d probably go down. The unemployment rate went up, primarily because of the government shutdown, so that was really hypothetical unemployment rate because they were still employed, they just weren’t working.” Walberg called the job numbers in the past 100 months, “historic”. The Michigan Congressman said that most of the credit should go to the aggressive moves made by the government to create a strong job climate.
