U.S private companies continue to add jobs amidst the Coronavirus fears in February

The Coronavirus crisis failed to put the U.S companies under pressure in February as they continued to add jobs at a pace much faster than what Wall Street had estimated.

According to Moody’s Analytics’ report on Wednesday, the U.S private sector added 183K jobs in February. In a Down Jones survey, economists had anticipated a much lower gain of 155K instead.

The job growth in the private sector was particularly good news for the U.S economy amidst rising concerns that the Coronavirus outbreak will weigh heavily on the global economy. The epidemic has so far infected more than 90,000 people worldwide and caused over 3,000 deaths. In order to cope with its impact on the U.S economy, the Federal Reserve announced an emergency rate cut on Tuesday for the first time in over a decade.

Moody’s Analytics Says The Impact Of Coronavirus Is Not Yet Reflected In The Data

Chief Economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics commented on Wednesday’s data and reiterated that the U.S economy is relatively safe as long as COVID-19 doesn’t penetrate the job market. While the U.S private sector, Zandi added, has remained resilient and added more than expected jobs in February, it is likely that the broader impact of the virus outbreak is yet to echo in the U.S economic data.

Wednesday data also downwardly revised January’s figure to 209K from a much higher 291K that was reported earlier and branded as the largest monthly gain in almost 5 years. The revised figure, however, still remained above the Wall Street forecast.

February’s data came out significantly higher than the average of 154K for the past 12 months. The data also highlighted on Wednesday that a significant chunk of added jobs (133K) in February was attributed to the companies with over 55 employees. On the contrary, only 24,000 new jobs last month came from the U.S companies with less than 50 employees. Economists construed these figures as Coronavirus being a greater risk for small businesses in the U.S.

Payroll Data From Different Sectors In February

The services sector accounted for 172K new jobs in February with 46,000 attributed to health services and education. The leisure and hospitality sector created 44,000 new jobs while another 38,000 were reported in professional and other business services. Transportation, utilities, and trade contributed 31,000 new jobs to the total count for February. A gain of 9,000 new jobs was announced in financial activities while information services saw a decline of 2,000 positions last month.

In the goods-producing sector, manufacturing was down 4,000 jobs in February while another 3,000 each in resources and mining was also highlighted. The construction sector, however, gained a massive 18,000 new jobs in February.

EUR/USD has dropped from 1.1185 to 1.1095 on Wednesday. At the time of writing, the currency pair is exchanging hands at 1.1145.