The Federal Reserve (Fed) found sufficient reasons this Friday to continue with its aggressive policy of slowing down the economy to contain inflation. Despite eight consecutive rises in interest rates, until leaving them at 4.5-4.75%, the US labor market continues to demonstrate a perseverance beyond anything imaginable.

So good news is bad news, at least apparently for Wall Street investors. The United States created 311,000 jobs in February, which is a slowdown from January, although it remains well above expectations. This result suggests that the Fed will further accelerate the pace of rate hikes as its chairman Jerome Powell advanced in his two appearances in Congress this week.

All the analysts were right that job creation would lose strength compared to the exuberant number of last January, which was over half a million, also surprisingly. However, forecasts indicated that the February increase would stay at 225,000, which was already considered a robust number.

On the other hand, the unemployment rate rose from the historical 3.4% to the almost historical 3.6%, above expectations, a sign that the labor force increased (from 62.4% to 62.5%). Wages obtained a slight gain in February of 0.2% (below the 0.4% predicted), which means that from one year to the next, employees earn 4.6% more on average. This is good news for inflation, analysts noted, because that percentage was expected to reach 4.8%.

Other data confirms the economic exuberance of the US, despite the fight waged by the central bank since March 2022. Consumer spending rose last month, inflation entrenched in its decline and business activity climbed during February. However, the resistance of the labor market emerges as one of the biggest surprises after the measures for the pandemic crisis adopted three years ago now.

Analysts agree that the job market is much stronger now than they might have thought six months ago. The increase above forecasts occurs when the job cuts in large technology companies such as Amazon, Meta, Alphabet or Disney have already begun to have an impact.

Once again, leisure and hospitality (bars and restaurants) dominated growth, with an increase of 105,000 jobs, above the average of 91,000 created in the last six months. The retail sector added 50,000, the Government added 46,000 and business services registered 45,000 more. On the opposite side, information-related jobs lost 25,000 employees, while transportation and storage fell by 22,000.