U.S. economy adds whopping 353,000 jobs in January as labor market heats up

"Whopping" is a bit strong given how this kind of monthly increase has been fairly common post-covid.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS#0

As usual the 'growth' was retail etc. People who maybe used to have a job in engineering or management or technical jobs, selling shoes now.

The 'labor market' sucks as a measure of how people are doing. "Hey, the slaves are all pulling at the giant stone blocks! The economy is booming!"

Cue folks suggesting people should educate themselves and get out of retail etc. That's 30 million Americans for instance. They cannot all be trained as Engineers, even if we needed 30 million more Engineers which we don't.

It's maybe time to reconsider 'slaving away at futile activities' as a measure of societal success.