Lana

finally published its January jobs report, but this year's good news came with last year's caveats.

And fresh data showed China's still battling the same old problems, justifying local governments' decisions to downgrade their economic forecasts.

We'll also check in with Carl to get his answers to your burning questions.

More on the way, but first, a word from Guy at Finimize HQ.

The U.S.

released its delayed January jobs report, along with a few downgrades to previous month's numbers, just to disprove the old adage that great things come to those who wait.

America added 130,000 jobs in January, well ahead of the 70,000 analysts were braced for and the most since December 2024.

The country's unemployment rate came in slightly better than predicted too, landing at 4.3%, and the average hourly wage followed suit.

America's government shutdown pushed the report out behind schedule, which forced traders and policymakers to lean on second-tier indicators in the meantime.

Now that the official numbers are in, traders think the Federal Reserve will hold off on its interest rate cut.

They're betting on it landing in July rather than June.

This report adjusted November and December's payroll numbers down by 17,000.

That leaves 2025's total count at just 181,000 jobs.

If you exclude the pandemic and the post-financial crisis slump, that's the weakest showing since 2003.

Lower immigration is partly to blame.

With fewer folks coming in, the pool of available workers is smaller, and that naturally caps how many new jobs the country can create.

Each January, officials revisit previous payrolls in year-long chunks and revise them to create a more accurate, but obviously less timely, snapshot.

They do it in April to March periods, so we're looking at the one leading up to March 2025 now.

The results?

A downgrade of 862,000 jobs.