Payrolls in January up even as wage growth weakens

Washington

US employers added the most workers in four months while wage growth slowed more than projected, suggesting there's still some slack left in the labour market.

January's 227,000 increase in payrolls followed a 157,000 rise in December, a Labor Department report showed on Friday in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 180,000 advance. The jobless rate rose to 4.8 per cent, and average hourly earnings grew 2.5 per cent from January 2016, the weakest since August.