A Moody’s economist who appeared on MSNBC on Friday told Chuck Todd that the weak jobs report by the Labor Department was caused by cold weather.
Employers added just 113,000 new jobs in January — far short of Wall Street projections that of roughly 175,000 — but Moody’s economist Mark Zandi said “I just don’t believe” those numbers, Mediaite reported. He added that “the weather is all over” the reports.
When Mr. Zandi faced push-back from Mr. Todd on whether the fundamentals of the economy were sound after two straight months of substandard numbers, he replied: “It was still really cold in January, really cold.”
If weather was to blame, it did not affect the construction industry; the Department of Labor reported sector growth of 48,000 jobs last month.
Economists who followed Mr. Zandi on the network later in the day disagreed with the notion that recent weather curbed U.S. job creation, according to Mediaite.
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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