Chicago Fed Model Anticipates Steady January Unemployment Rate

By Matt Grossman

An economic model from the Chicago Fed estimates that unemployment likely held steady at 4.4% last month.

The model, published monthly just before the Labor Department's jobs report, is based on a mix of public and private figures. Although the model's headline prediction shows no change in the unemployment rate, it gives slightly greater odds that unemployment fell rather than rose in January.

The official jobs report had been scheduled for Friday but was pushed back to next Wednesday, Feb. 11, after this week's brief partial government shutdown.

Hiring has downshifted significantly in the past year, but so has growth in the number of workers who are entering the labor force and looking for jobs. Those forces, roughly in balance, have yielded a gradual rise in unemployment without a major downturn in the labor market's health.

Unemployment ticked higher to 4.5% in November, but recovered to 4.4% in December. Like the Chicago Fed's model, economists polled by The Wall Street Journal are also projecting that unemployment held steady in January and that the economy added 60,000 net jobs.

Write to Matt Grossman at matt.grossman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2026 08:44 ET (13:44 GMT)