10:30 AM EST, 02/07/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The US economy added fewer jobs than expected in January, while the unemployment rate unexpectedly moved down, according to government data.

Total nonfarm payrolls rose by 143,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The consensus was for a 175,000 increase, according to a survey compiled by Bloomberg. Gains for December were revised up by 51,000 to 307,000 and adjusted up by 49,000 for November.

The BLS said that wildfires in Southern California and severe winter weather had "no discernible effect" on the job numbers.

"There is a ton of noise in this data due to annual revisions to both seasonal factors and population estimates, so individual details need to be taken with a grain of salt," Jefferies Chief US Economist Thomas Simons said in a note. "The payroll numbers for December and November were revised up a total of (100,000), which suggests that some of the residual seasonality issues may have been addressed."

The unemployment rate edged down to 4% from December's 4.1%, which was the market view for January.

Private payrolls advanced by 111,000 in January, decelerating from a 273,000 gain the month prior and below the consensus of 158,000 on Bloomberg. The service industry drove all of January gains as the goods-producing sector didn't record any job additions or losses.

Average hourly earnings grew by 0.5% sequentially, the BLS report showed, above the Street's estimate for a 0.3% increase. The annual measure grew 4.1%, topping the 3.8% rise modeled by analysts.

"With inflation progress having stalled in recent months and heightened uncertainties on how far the new administration will go on tariffs, the (Federal Reserve) is likely to remain more cautious on rate cuts and hold the policy rate steady until sometime this summer," TD Economics Senior Economist Thomas Feltmate said.

Last week, the Fed held its benchmark lending rate steady, while removing reference to inflation making progress toward the Federal Open Market Committee's 2% target.