National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein

Jobs Jump In January—But American Worker Displacement Soars

U.S. payrolls shrank by 20,000 jobs in January, deepening concern that relief from the deepest employment fall since the Great Depression would be slow to come.

But even as the economy floundered in its struggle to start creating jobs again, the unemployment rate fell, to 9.7 percent from 10 percent in December.

This apparent anomaly reflects two differing employment surveys. The survey of households, used to calculate the unemployment rate, reported a massive 541,000 rise in employment, and a 430,000 fall in unemployment. The labor force rose by 11,000.

That’s good news. Household employment usually leads payroll employment in signaling turns in the economic cycle. We can expect at least a temporary resumption of robust payroll growth in coming months.

But the job figures also show a resumption of American worker displacement: In January Hispanics gained jobs at nearly four times the rate of Non-Hispanics:

Total employment: +541,000 (+0.39 percent)

Non-Hispanic employment: +217,000 (+1.11 percent)

Hispanic employment: +324,000 (+0.27 percent)

People on the patriotic side of the immigration debate saw it coming. They warned that the Obama stimulus would benefit occupations disproportionately manned by immigrants. January’s pattern–with the 16 percent of the labor force that are Hispanics garnering 40 percent of the new jobs—seems to justify their “paranoia.â€