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The nonfarm payrolls report just came out, and it was a big miss.

Just 113,000 new jobs were created in January vs. 180,000 expected.

But there are two parts to every jobs report.

One is the Establishment Survey, where they ask businesses how many people they hired in the month. That's where the 113,000 number came from.

But the other part is the Household Survey, where they ask households whether they gained/lost jobs in the month.

And that side of this report was amazing.

From the report:


Got that? Households reported 616,000 new jobs in the month, and the participation rate rose. And unemployment fell from 6.7% to 6.6%. And the unemployment rate for those with only a high school education fell from 7.1% to 6.5% in one month!

Oh, and the jobs that were created? They were not part-time jobs. In fact, there was a huge drop in people saying they were doing part time hours


As for why there are two parts to the jobs report, and why they can be so different, the BLS explains:


So you have to take all of the data. According to establishments, January was pretty meh. According to households, it was a great month.