HIRING SPREE

U.S. Added Omicron-Bucking 467,000 to Payrolls in January

The figure was much higher than estimates, despite the pandemic disruption.

The U.S. faced a massive surge in COVID-19 infections in January driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant—but the jobs market got through the tricky month much, much better than expected. CNBC reports that non-farm payrolls shot up by 467,000 for the month, which is far higher than analysts’ estimates for payroll growth, which stood at just 150,000. The numbers were expected to be so low that the White House even preemptively warned Americans last week that the Omicron spike would be to blame. On top the stunning numbers for January, the figure for December was massively revised upward: According to CNBC, December’s payroll gains leaped to 510,000, up from the initially reported 199,000.