RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
The latest jobs report is at the top of NPR's business news.
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MONTAGNE: NPR's John Ydstie has joined us to try to figure it out. Good morning, John.
JOHN YDSTIE: Hi, Renee.
MONTAGNE: So there were only 36,000 jobs added to company payrolls in January. That's about 100,000 less than expected. What happened?
YDSTIE: On the other hand, some sectors were able to add workers. Manufacturing added 49,000 jobs in January, very strong. And almost half of them in the auto industry. So I think while the weather played a big role, it may also be that expectations were a bit too high.
MONTAGNE: And what about the fall in the unemployment rate to nine percent? I mean that's a big drop and doesn't seem to be in line with these employment numbers.
YDSTIE: And that, of course, pushes the unemployment rate down very sharply, to nine percent. Now, economists tend to rely more on the survey of businesses to count job increases. They think it's more reliable over the short term and that the household survey is not as accurate. And certainly the two surveys are at odds in this report. But you know, sometimes during an inflection point in the economy, the household survey leads. So I guess one can hope that it's more accurate than the business - survey of businesses at this point.
MONTAGNE: Well, okay, so with these two surveys out of sync, what about the longer-term trends? I mean does a clearer picture emerge there?
YDSTIE: You need 200,000 jobs or more a month on a consistent rate to bring down the unemployment rate and make people feel like we're headed in the right direction.
MONTAGNE: Well, just briefly, how does this look for the Obama administration?
YDSTIE: Well, I think the administration's certainly going to highlight the nine percent unemployment rate, the big drop in unemployment rate, and they're going to hope that the household survey is more accurate at predicting the jobs creation numbers than the establishment, the business survey.
MONTAGNE: NPR's economic correspondent John Ydstie. Thanks very much.
YDSTIE: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.