U.S. Hiring Struggles To Rebound From Winter Chill

(Reuters) - U.S. job creation slowed sharply over the past two months, turning in the weakest performance in three years and raising the prospect that the economy may be losing momentum.

At the same time, however, the unemployment rate hit a new five-year low of 6.6 percent in January even as Americans piled back into the labor market to search for work.

The Jekyll and Hyde report from the Labor Department on Friday whipsawed U.S. markets in early trade. Many economists cautioned against reading too much into it given the extreme weather that has hit much of the nation this winter.

"It supports the view that momentum is slowing in the first quarter, but it's too early to draw conclusions and we should not be too pessimistic either," said Thomas Costerg, a U.S. economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York.

Nonfarm payrolls rose only 113,000 last month after a meager 75,000 gain in December, the report showed. Economists had expected payrolls to rise 185,000 in January and had looked for a big upward revision to December that failed to materialize.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/07/us-usa-economy-idUSBREA1608S20140207