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146,000 jobs added in January

Friday, Feb. 4, 2005 | 9:31 a.m.

The economy continued to add jobs at an unexpectedly modest pace as 2005 began, leaving a long-forecast boom in employment still somewhere off in the future.

The nation's payrolls grew by 146,000 jobs in January, roughly matching the growth in the population, the Labor Department reported this morning. Weekly wages for rank-and-file workers -- about 80 percent of the labor force -- fell because firms reduced the average length of the workweek.

The unemployment rate dropped to 5.2 percent, from 5.4 percent, to the lowest level since just before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the drop was largely a result of a rise in the number of people no longer looking for work, who are not considered unemployed.

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