It is a real stem winder, with the non-farm payroll jumping by 254,000, much higher than the consensus forecast of 150,000, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.1% to 5.1%.
Additionally the jobs games in July and August were revised up, and wages were up 4% year over year vs a 2.5% increase in the consumer price index.
It's good news, unless the Federal reserve chooses to make it bad news.
Wages picked up slightly last month, according to the Labor Department. Average hourly earnings rose 4% from a year earlier, the strongest increase since May. That was well above the pace of inflation, which is positive news for price-pinched consumers. The consumer-price index was up 2.5% in August from a year earlier.
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Inflationary pressures have eased markedly over the past two years, and the Fed’s focus has shifted more to hiring than price increases. That means the jobs market will play an outsize role in Fed officials’ decisions on the path of interest rates.
Conventional wisdom holds that cooling inflation comes hand-in-hand with a sharp slowdown in the labor market. However, over the past couple of years, U.S. employers have muscled through high interest rates with continued hiring, and inflation has fallen significantly. That combination, if sustained, would amount to a big win for the Fed.
The wage increases are because workers have become more militant, and, because of Covid deaths and long Covid disability, there are fewer workers to take the jobs.
A lot of this may be in response to the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates and implying that further rates are coming down the pipe.
Senator Marco Rubio is claiming that the numbers are fake which is a lie, but we are talking about Marco Rubio, so lying is a mandatory feature.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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