By John Hugh DeMastri
Daily Caller News Foundation
The U.S. added 517,000 jobs in January, more than two and a half times what economists anticipated, as the unemployment rate nudged down to 3.4%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday.
Economists had predicted that the nation would add roughly 187,000 jobs, and that the unemployment rate would nudge up to 3.6% from 3.5%, roughly where it has lingered for the past several months, The Wall Street Journal reported. Previously, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had estimated that the unemployment rate would climb to roughly 4.6% by the end of 2023, as markets slowed in response to the Fed’s anti-inflationary campaign of interest rate hikes, in a Dec. 14 press conference.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the unemployment rate will rise this year considering that the current 3.5% rate matches the half-century low reached just prior to the pandemic and that the Fed needs to continue raising rates to counter excessive inflation,” Heritage Foundation senior fellow Rachel Greszler told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “What will matter most is whether the rise in the official unemployment rate comes primarily from layoffs or from people rejoining the workforce.”
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In terms of the overall unemployment rate, significant layoffs would have a similar impact to a significant return to the labor force, Greszler told the DCNF. With the BLS reporting roughly 11 million job openings in the U.S., Greszler estimates that as many as 2.8 million workers may rejoin the labor force, “adding to the economy and reducing welfare costs.”
A variety of companies, including shipping giant FedEx and electric vehicle company Rivian, announced layoffs this week, the WSJ reported.
“The labor market is going to cool pretty considerably in 2023,” Jonathan Pingle, chief U.S. economist at investment bank UBS told the WSJ. “We’re expecting an economic contraction to unfold over the latter three quarters of the year.”
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: What is behind the current war against America’s children? Why are so many adults killing their unborn children right up to the moment of birth, or even after? Why are millions of kids sexualized virtually from birth, and injected with an experimental “vaccine” proven to be both ineffective and dangerous, then as toddlers transported to events glorifying mentally ill, demonically possessed men dressed as women?
Why are America’s children systematically sexualized at school, and by transgender recruiters on social media platforms like TikTok, seducing many into “identifying” as the opposite gender, or a brand-new imaginary gender, then encouraged to take powerful drugs and hormones and have their healthy breasts amputated or undergo chemical or surgical castration?
Why are our children simultaneously indoctrinated with toxic Marxist ideologies like “critical race theory” intended to condition them to hate and reject their own country, parents, faith, race, gender and themselves? Why are they simultaneously being frightened of the future by being fed lurid, terrifying – and groundless – apocalyptic tales of the imminent destruction of the world due to global warming?
No wonder youth suicides have skyrocketed, as have depression, anxiety, addiction and drug overdoses. Indeed, fentanyl, the No. 1 cause of death of younger Americans 18 to 45, destroys multitudes of children annually.
Make no mistake: The harm being done to America’s children in this multi-front war is not accidental: Children are the primary target.
WHY? How can all this be happening in the greatest nation on earth? Who and what is behind it? And HOW CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Find out in the explosive January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, “WINNING THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA’S CHILDREN,” available in both print and state-of-the-art digital editions.
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