Hearts Afire!

Can't catch a break. The jobs report is out and the cynics are still complaining regardless of the results.

Okay, this is the week when we get the monthly jobs report for the month of January.

It seems like even though we obtained a fair amount of jobs, its still not enough for the critics of President Barack Obama.

January's records 113,000 jobs brings the unemployment numbers to 6.6%.

The New York Times reports that the American economy added 113,000 jobs in January, a disappointing showing that is likely to spur fears that the labor market is poised for yet another slowdown.

Before the report from the Labor Department on Friday morning, economists had been looking for the economy to gain 180,000 positions last month. But after an extraordinarily weak showing for hiring in December, some experts are concerned that weakness is carrying into 2014 and signaling a broader loss of momentum in the economy.

The unemployment rate in January was 6.6 percent, compared with 6.7 percent in December.

While some other economic figures have suggested strength in the economy recently, especially the robust rate of growth in the United States in the second half of 2013, the labor market has been healing more slowly.

Still, in the fall there had been enough pickup in hiring to persuade the Federal Reserve in December to gradually begin scaling back its stimulus efforts. With the January report substantially weaker than expected, that call is looking increasingly premature.

Private employers added 142,000 positions to their payrolls in January, while government at all levels shed 29,000. Among individual sectors, manufacturing had a gain of 21,000 jobs, while employment in construction jumped by 48,000.

The employment-population ratio, which has been falling as more workers drop out of the job market, edged up 0.2 percentage points to 58.8 percent. In recent years, the exit of people from the work force has reduced the unemployment rate, but it is a sign that people are giving up hope of finding a job amid slack conditions, hardly the way policy makers would like to see joblessness come down.

Despite Friday’s report, another steady reduction in bond purchases is likely when Fed policy makers next meet in March. A disappointing showing in February’s report, however, might change that.

Wintry conditions that held back hiring were blamed for the weakness in December, a theory popular among more optimistic economists after those numbers came out in early January.

For last month, despite what seems like an endless series of snowstorms on the East Coast and arctic conditions in the Midwest recently, the reference week for the latest survey was Jan. 12-18, when conditions were fairly normal as Januaries go, limiting some of the impact of the weather in this report.