Net Job Creation through January 2015

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on non-farm employment indicated that 257,000 jobs were added in January. As we were analyzing this date we noticed massive historical revisions and had to go back to January 2000 (15 years!) before were confident we had caught them all. In the 12 months of 2014, job creation was revised up by 164,000 positions and in just November and December up by 147,000. The three month moving average (3MMA) of gains in January was the highest since March 2000 at 336,000. This job recovery is now seen to be much stronger than was the case in the mid-2000s, (Figure 1).

Total non-farm payrolls are now 2,484,000 more than they were at the pre-recession high of January 2008. November was the first time ever for total non-farm employment to exceed 140 million. In each of the last eleven months the 3MMA has exceeded 200,000 / month and with the latest revision, 2,950,000 jobs were created in 2014. All numbers in this analysis are seasonally adjusted by the BLS.