BREAKING: U.S. employers added 678,000 jobs in February, another solid gain that underscored the economy’s health as the omicron wave fades. The unemployment rate dropped from 4% to 3.8%, the Labor Department reported.
Chair Jerome Powell said this week that he plans to propose that the Fed raise its benchmark short-term rate by a quarter-point when it meets in about two weeks. Powell has acknowledged that high inflation has proved more persistent and has spread more broadly than he and many economists had expected.
Powell also warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to higher prices for gas as well as for such other commodities as aluminum, wheat and corn, thereby keeping inflation higher than it would otherwise have been. Oil prices, which have been soaring since war began more than a week ago, are critically important to the global economy.
During the omicron wave, businesses barely wavered in their demand for workers. Job openings at the end of December reached near-record levels, with an average of 1.7 available positions for every unemployed person. Historically, there are usually more people out of work than there are jobs.
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