It's the First Friday of the Month

So the new non-farm payroll and unemployment numbers came out, and they are pretty good, despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve tank the job market, with an increase of 261,000 jobs in October, well over the number necessary to keep up with natural expansion of the workforce, and the unemployment rate (U3) rose to by .1% to 3.7%.

I still think that the seasonal correction have not caught up with the new reality of employment in the United States, so interpreting the data is not as straightforward as one would like.

It's clear that the job market remains tight, I think that a lot of this has to do labor force participation remaining low because of a significant number of people disabled by long Covid: (More on that later)

The U.S. labor market remains strong but is showing more signs of cooling following the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate increases aimed at combating high inflation.

Employers added a seasonally adjusted 261,000 jobs in October, a robust number but the fewest since December 2020, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, the Labor Department said Friday. Wage gains in October ticked up from the previous month. On an annual basis, however, wage increases have eased, a possible sign of loosening in the labor market.

The report points to an economy that is gradually losing momentum following a torrid stretch of growth last year and earlier this year. Over the past three months, employers added an average 289,000 jobs a month, down from 539,000 during the same period a year ago. But that is still far more than before the pandemic. In 2019, job gains averaged 164,000 a month.

………

The report showed wage gains quickened last month. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% in October from the previous month, up from 0.3% in September, the Labor Department said. But they slowed on an annual basis, rising 4.7% in October, down from 5% in September. Annual wage gains have been softening steadily since peaking at 5.6% in March but they remain well above where they were before the pandemic.

The Fed is trying to cool the economy and bring inflation down from near 40-year highs and will take little comfort from the report, said Augustine Faucher, chief economist at the PNC Financial Services Group. Officials had been looking for a more pronounced slowdown as a sign that interest-rate increases have started to cool the economy.

Again, I'm not sure what this all means, but I am sure that the Federal Reserve is screwing this up, and that they are in a hole, and they are determined to keep digging.