WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy has finally broken free of the sharp ups and downs of Covid, President Joe Biden said Friday, citing January’s unexpectedly big jobs gains.

President also pointed out upward revisions of November and December employment data, which showed that the economy had remained robust despite an astronomical spike in Covid caseloads.

“Our country is taking everything that Covid has to throw at us, and we’ve come back stronger,” Biden said in remarks at the White House.

For the month of March, nonfarm payrolls rose by 467,000, and the unemployment rate rose to 4%. according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A week later, the gain was larger than expected. White House warned that the numbers could be low due to the pandemic.

The big surprise of January was accompanied by huge revisions that sent prior months significantly higher.

Although December was initially reported as an increase of 199,000, it jumped to 510,000. From the previous reported 249,000, November saw a rise to 647,000. The initial count was revised by 709,000 for the first two months.

These changes brought 2021’s total to 6.6665 million. This is easily the largest single-year gain in U.S. History as employers hired back employees they had fired during the worst pandemic.

Biden said, “If there aren’t any more years in the past when this many people came to work here in America,” “It has never happened.”

Together, these numbers show that January’s combined revisions and the two previous months suggest that the record breaking omicron waves did not have the same economic impact as last summer or fall’s delta wave of Covid.

The largest employment growth in January was seen in leisure and hospitality. There were 151,000 new hires. 108,000 came from restaurants and bars. These numbers are further proof that even though it is contagious, omicron does not cause milder illness than the other Covid strains.

By contrast, last August the National Restaurant Association foundAs the number of delta variants rose, nearly one-fifth of Americans gave up going to restaurants.

In January, wages also rose as the average hourly wage for all workers in the country rose 0.7% and 5.7% respectively. These are the highest rates of growth since 2020. Recent months have seen the White House hail wage gains as an indicator of workers’ bargaining power and evidence corporate boards are making progress toward fairer employee compensation.

Wall Street traders as well as economists claim they keep a close watch on the wage statistics because it could be a key indicator of inflation. Labor is nearly always the number one cost facing corporations. Companies face the most expensive cost, and higher wages may lead to higher retail prices.

These numbers also support the Federal Reserve’s intention to increase interest rates, and keep its Covid-era easy cash policies in check. It is expected that the central bank will begin a new cycle of interest rates hikes in March, which could ultimately increase the price of home and auto loans.

This story was contributed by Jeff Cox, CNBC.