by Calculated Risk on 2/08/2020 11:07:00 AM

The weather boosted employment gains in January. The question is: how much?

The BLS reported 226 thousand people were employed in non-agriculture industries, with a job, but not at work due to bad weather. The average for January over the previous 10 years was 347 thousand.

The BLS also reported 744 thousand people were usually full time employees, but were working part time in January due to bad weather.  The average for January over the previous 10 years was 1.2 million.

Both of the series suggest weather negatively impacted employment less than usual (boosting seasonally adjusted employment).

The San Francisco Fed estimates Weather-Adjusted Change in Total Nonfarm Employment (monthly change, seasonally adjusted). They use local area weather to estimate the impact on employment. For January, the BLS reported 225 thousand jobs added, the San Francisco Fed estimates that weather adjusted employment gains were 125 thousand.

So we should expect some payback in coming months.   (Note: One of the reasons I took the "over" in January was because of the weather)