DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — The U.S. job market is growing at the start of the year.

In a report from the U.S. Labor Department released on Friday, February 2, it was announced the economy added nearly 353,000 jobs. This report showed job gains at nearly twice the number that economists had predicted.

In the first month of 2024, data shows hiring and wage growth were both strong. This comes as the unemployment rate for the U.S. sits at 3.7%.

Just a few days ago, the Federal Reserve announced they were holding their benchmark interest rates steady — there haven’t been any increases since July.

Data also shows the unemployment rate has been below 4% for two straight years, which is the longest streak since the 1960s.

And wages year after year were up 4.5% which experts say is good for people getting that average pay increase.

But there are still concerns, with the inflation rate at 3.4% for 12 months ending in December. That’s up from the previous rate according to the Labor Department.

Dr. Jared Pincin, an associate professor of economics from Cedarville University, says the report can be deceptive, because most workers aren’t seeing the benefits in our everyday lives.

“But the fact that that’s increasing might show the disconnect that you often hear where people say, look at the jobs numbers being created. And then when you ask the average person on the street, how do they feel economically? They paint a very different picture. And you can explain that very easily, again, by looking at people versus jobs and the disconnect there,” explained Pincin.

When it comes to analyzing the local job market, it’s about identifying long term trends, and even though the January report delivered a burst of hiring, there’s work that still needs to be done.

“If you look at just average wage growth per week, it actually fell in that time period,” said Pincin. “But there’s a big caveat with that. We don’t have the full year data, so that only captured the first half of 2023. And it’s very possible that the latter half of 2023 would have meant employment increased by 100,000.”

At the beginning, we tend to see retail layoffs and new programs start to gear up for the year. One of those trends being noticed — having more jobs than people.

“We’re starting to see the pendulum starting to swing a little bit. You know, we have some sectors that have slowed down and we’ve seen some companies nationally that have announced layoffs that are coming,” said Doug Barry, president of Barrystaff, an Ohio job service. “So, you know, I think we’re we’re still have more jobs than we do people, but don’t know how much longer that’s going to last.”

And when it comes to inflation, wage growth is playing a factor.