The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that there were 517,000 jobs created in January, which was much stronger than estimates. Revisions to the data from November and December added 71,000 jobs in those months combined. The unemployment rate declined from 3.5% to 3.4%, which is the lowest since 1969.

What’s the bottom line? There are two reports within the Jobs Report and there is a fundamental difference between them. The Business Survey is where the headline job number comes from and it's based predominately on modeling and estimations. The Household Survey, where the Unemployment Rate comes from, is derived by calling households to see if they are employed. The Household Survey has its own job creation component and it showed that there were 894,000 new jobs created last month.

While these job growth figures appear strong, it’s important to note that there were big adjustments to how the data was calculated in January. New seasonal factors, new benchmarks and new population estimates/controls were instated. If we remove these adjustments, the number of job creations in the Household Survey would have only been 84,000 versus the 894,000 that were reported.

In addition, looking deeper at the face value numbers, of the 894,000 job creations in the Household Survey, 606,000 were from part-time workers.

Considering the number of large layoffs that have been reported across the country, along with the revisions, new benchmarks and population adjustments made to the reporting by the BLS, the labor sector likely isn’t as strong as their January Jobs Report suggests.