NEW YORK, Feb 2 Reuters U.S. job growth accelerated in January, likely as a resilient economy and strong worker productivity encouraged businesses to hire and retain more employees, a trend that could shield the economy from a recession this year.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 353,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. Data for December was revised higher to show 333,000 jobs added instead of 216,000 as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls increasing 180,000.

Average hourly earnings increased 0.6 last month after rising 0.4 in December.

MARKET REACTION

STOCKS U.S. stock futures pared strong gains and were last up 0.07, still pointing to a near flat opening on Wall Street BONDS The U.S. Treasury 10year yield jumped to 4.005; Twoyear yields rose to 4.382 FOREX The dollar index turned 0.73 positive

COMMENTS

KEVIN GORDON, SENIOR INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, CHARLES SCHWAB, NEW YORK

If there was any doubt that the March cut was still being debated I think that has been put to bed which is at least helpful for a clarity perspective.

The interesting part of the past year almost the past full year is that the market has been horribly wrong about the nearterm trajectory of Fed policy and this is another instance where that39;s the case. Not only did you get the ultimate clarity from Powell at the meeting, in the rare instance that he would opine on that and sort of come out directly and say, it that a March cut was off the…