Jobs increase by large amount in U.S. last month, surprising experts

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The national job outlook is looking brighter as last month's job numbers grew and the previous month's totals were adjusted higher.

U.S. Labor Department reported 467,000 job gains on Friday, which came as a huge surprise, even to the experts. 

"There was even some expectation that the job report would show some job losses." said Labor Lawyer Michael Bernick of the Duane Morris law firm, a former EDD Director. "It showed revision of the numbers in December of an additional 300,000 plus jobs."

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He sees this as a major turn in the job market. 

"We've built up such a remote structure of work now that even with these shutdowns, people keep working. Even with, perhaps additional variants, the economy is strong," said the former EDD Director. "We have this remote work structure and they're moving ahead and hiring,"

There are still well over 10 million jobs open with millions of people quitting their current jobs. 

"Part of it the confidence of workers, in other words, seeing that there are a lot of jobs out there, seeing something better, they’re moving on. And, part of it is employers have this large number of job openings," said Bernick.

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Because California's actual workforce still remains well below pre-pandemic levels and, with so many people still on the sidelines, that suggests a lot more hiring is likely coming. 

"We're in a very strong, tight labor market where employers can't find enough workers and employers are confident enough to continue to hire At the same time, we have this very high inflation rate that wiping out a lot of the worker gains." said Bernick.

If the U.S. can get inflation down and under control, the economy should boom as never before.