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The much-anticipated Employment Situation report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is out this morning, with results on the headline much stronger than expected, which is leading into yet another sell-off in pre-market equities. Yes, folks — the “good news is bad news” scenario is not dead yet: 336K new nonfarm jobs were created for the month of September — double what analysts were expecting — and the Unemployment Rate remains at 3.8% for the second-straight month.
This headline jobs number is the strongest we’ve seen in eight months. They are at odds with Wednesday’s ADP (ADP - Free Report) private-sector jobs gains of +89K last month, but quite in-line with an unexpectedly robust JOLTS number Tuesday (although those figures were for August). Revisions for the previous two months were raised: from 187K in August to 227K this morning, and July moved from 157K on the last revision to 236K. All total, compared to expectations and the previous two months of prints, we have 285K more jobs than we had expected from mid-summer.
Hourly Wages grew +0.2%, lower than the +0.3% expected and in-line with August. Year over year, these have come down to +4.2% — the lowest rate since June 2021 — indicating that while employment remains strong, increases to wages have cooled. We saw this in the ADP numbers a couple mornings ago. Labor Force Participation remained steady at 62.8% — on this metric we are back down to February 2020 (aka pre-pandemic) levels. The Average Workweek stayed flat at 34.4 hours.
Leisure and Hospitality showed another unexpected bump higher, +92K new jobs filled last month, after appearing on the wane following majorly heavy job growth back during the Great Reopening. Government filled 73K positions, Healthcare jobs grew +41K, and Education reached +29K. Considering other economic prints throughout the course of the month, these labor force figures are defiantly hot. This is almost always good news for an economy — and, with low wage growth along with it, we can say the same for this month’s tally.
Pre-market trading, however, fell off a table the moment these numbers hit the tape this morning, all major indices in tandem with each other. We’re currently bouncing a little off the early trading bottom, but we welcomed the BLS report tacking in the green; at this hour, the Dow is -165 points, the S&P 500 -33, the Nasdaq -143 and the small-cap Russell 2000 -12 points. In relation to this, the 10-year bond yield cranks higher to 4.8% and the 2-year 5.15%. Put this in the column of yet another rate hike from the Fed five weeks from now.
Image: Bigstock
Jobs Numbers Double to 336K on Low Wage Growth
The much-anticipated Employment Situation report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is out this morning, with results on the headline much stronger than expected, which is leading into yet another sell-off in pre-market equities. Yes, folks — the “good news is bad news” scenario is not dead yet: 336K new nonfarm jobs were created for the month of September — double what analysts were expecting — and the Unemployment Rate remains at 3.8% for the second-straight month.
This headline jobs number is the strongest we’ve seen in eight months. They are at odds with Wednesday’s ADP (ADP - Free Report) private-sector jobs gains of +89K last month, but quite in-line with an unexpectedly robust JOLTS number Tuesday (although those figures were for August). Revisions for the previous two months were raised: from 187K in August to 227K this morning, and July moved from 157K on the last revision to 236K. All total, compared to expectations and the previous two months of prints, we have 285K more jobs than we had expected from mid-summer.
Hourly Wages grew +0.2%, lower than the +0.3% expected and in-line with August. Year over year, these have come down to +4.2% — the lowest rate since June 2021 — indicating that while employment remains strong, increases to wages have cooled. We saw this in the ADP numbers a couple mornings ago. Labor Force Participation remained steady at 62.8% — on this metric we are back down to February 2020 (aka pre-pandemic) levels. The Average Workweek stayed flat at 34.4 hours.
Leisure and Hospitality showed another unexpected bump higher, +92K new jobs filled last month, after appearing on the wane following majorly heavy job growth back during the Great Reopening. Government filled 73K positions, Healthcare jobs grew +41K, and Education reached +29K. Considering other economic prints throughout the course of the month, these labor force figures are defiantly hot. This is almost always good news for an economy — and, with low wage growth along with it, we can say the same for this month’s tally.
Pre-market trading, however, fell off a table the moment these numbers hit the tape this morning, all major indices in tandem with each other. We’re currently bouncing a little off the early trading bottom, but we welcomed the BLS report tacking in the green; at this hour, the Dow is -165 points, the S&P 500 -33, the Nasdaq -143 and the small-cap Russell 2000 -12 points. In relation to this, the 10-year bond yield cranks higher to 4.8% and the 2-year 5.15%. Put this in the column of yet another rate hike from the Fed five weeks from now.
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