March 8, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Can we just agree that they way we measure the labor market is nuts? Today’s report on the U.S. economy is a case in point. Employers added 275,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday. But the unemployment rate rose to 3.9% from 3.7%.
October 1, 2023 | Daily JAM |
The September jobs report is expected to show that the U.S. economy added 168,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in September with the unemployment rate dropping to 3.7%.
July 3, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
I think the Friday, July 7, jobs report for June will be decisive in the Federal Reserve’s Jury 26 decision to raise/not-to-raise its benchmark interest rates. The CME FedWatch Tool current calculates the odds of a 25 basis point in create at 86.2%. The Bureau of Labor will release the Employment Situation Report on Friday. Economists are projecting that the economy added just 200,000 jobs in June. In May the economy added 339,000 jobs. Economists product that the unemployment rate will hold steady 3.7%.
April 7, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
U.S. payrolls rose by 236,000 in March. That was in line with forests from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its February report upward to show 326,000 jobs added in that month.) The official unemployment rate slipped to 3.5% from 3.6%. Average hourly wages increased at a 4.2% rate year-over-year. That was below estimates and the slowest growth since June 2021. The lower total for new jobs in the month is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for investors hoping that the Federal Reserve will decide its job is done and end its interest rate increases after one final 25 basis point increase at the Fed’s May 3 meeting. But the market read today was that the drop isn’t big enough to convince the Fed.
April 6, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits last week were a stronger than expected 228,000, the Labor Department reported today. The department also revised the numbers from the week before to 246,000, up by 48,000 A separate report Thursday showed job-cut announcements from U.S.-based employers rose 15% in March from the prior month, marking the highest first-quarter total since 2020, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
March 10, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The U.S. economy added 311,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, March 10. That was an expected drop from the January blowout of 504,000 new jobs. But it was significantly above the 225,000 jobs expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
January 2, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
It’s deja vu all over again as New York stock markets reopen for trading tomorrow.
We ended 2022 waiting for the monthly jobs report from the Labor Department to tell us when slower job growth would signal the potential end to the Federal Reserve’s cycle of interest rate increases. And we’re beginning 2023 the same way. The Labor Department will release the jobs report for December on Friday at 8:30 a.m. New York time. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg are projecting that the economy added 200,000 jobs in the month.That would be a strong but not too strong figure that’s unlikely to provide much clarity on the temperature of the jobs market or Federal Reserve policy. That’s especially true because the December jobs report is subject to significant seasonal error because government statisticians struggle to figure out how to adjust the data for seasonal holiday hiring. The Friday report will be preceded this week by the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (or JOLTS report), ADP’s private payrolls data, and the Challenger Job Cuts report.
July 8, 2022 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs in June. That was way above the expectations among economists surveyed by Bloomberg for 268,000 new jobs. And it was only slightly fewer than the 384,000 jobs (revised) added in May. The unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.6% in June. That was in line with expectations and with the 3.6% rate in May. Average hourly earnings climbed 0.3% month-over-month. That was on expectations but a slight dip from the 0.4% month-over-month gain in May. Average hourly earnings were up 5.1% year over year in June. That’s slightly higher than the expected 5.0% rate and slightly below the 5.3% annual rate in May. The data is good news for those on Wall Street still hoping for a soft landing for the economy
May 6, 2022 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. economy aded 428,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department reported today, May 6. That matched the jobs gains in M arch and was above e the 380,000 jobs expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The official unemployment rate remained at 3.6%. Economists had expected a drop to 3.4%. So why did the stock market decide this was bad news?
December 3, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
On the one hand, the headline numbers in this morning’s jobs report were disappointingly weak. The U.S. economy added just 210,000 workers in November. That was less than half of the median estimate–550,000–in Bloomberg’s survey of economists. So the worry is that the U.S. economy is growing more slowly than expected. Weak growth is generally bad for stocks. But it might have helped the bond market because a weaker U.S. economy might delay plans for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
But on the other, if you looked into the numbers, they seemed just downright odd. And didn’t provide much hope that the Fed would see this data as a reason to hold off on raising interest rates.
April 1, 2021 | Daily JAM |
With the financial markets closed tomorrow for Good Friday, traders and investors jumped in to buy today ahead of what is expected to be a jobs report tomorrow morning showing unemployment dropping to 6.0% (by the official measure) from 6.2% in February. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 1.18%. The Dow Jones Industrial average ended 0.52% higher. The NASDAQ Composite finished higher by 1.76%. And the small cap Russell 2000 gained 1.50% on the day.
November 30, 2020 | Daily JAM, Short Term |
Will the jobs report on Friday, December 4, be worrying enough to blast Washington out of what increasing looks like another stalemate over funding the government and another coronavirus stimulus bill? Economists generally expect that the jobs report will show that the economy continues to slow under the impact of new economic restrictions intended to slow the rate of coronavirus infections. Right now Congress and the White House aren’t showing much sense of urgency over either the economic pain in the country, which will get significantly worse when just about all the earlier coronavirus stimulus programs expire on December 3, or on passing a bill to fund the federal government past the December 10 deadline.