On Friday the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that last month, the US economy added 678K new jobs, way above market forecasts of 400K and higher than last month's upward revised 481k. Job growth was widespread, led by leisure and hospitality (179K), namely food services and drinking places (124K) and accommodation (28K); professional and business services (95K), mainly temporary help services (36K), management of companies and enterprises (12K) and management and technical consulting services (10K); health care (64K); and construction (60K). That leaves employment 2.1 million jobs below its pre-pandemic level and many economists believe the job market could recover all the pandemic losses this year.
NFP employment jumped by 678k jobs in February, the most in seven months. Source: Bloomberg via ZeroHedge
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Open account Try demo Download mobile app Download mobile appUnemployment rate fell slightly to 3.8% from 4.0% in January, below analysts’ estimates of 3.9%. Despite the upbeat tone of the report, the annual rate of wage growth moved lower. Wages fell to 0% MoM while markets expected a 0.5% MoM increase. Year-on-year, average hourly earnings have increased by 5.1%, following a downwardly revised 5.5% rise in January and missing market forecasts of a 5.8% gain. FED would prefer this measure to move higher together with rising inflation.
Wage growth lost its momentum last month. Source: Bloomberg via ZeroHedge
Powell recently said to Congress the labour market was "extremely tight", but the crisis in Ukraine poses new risks to the economic and inflation outlook. If we combine his comments with the stagnant wage growth chances for a 50 bp rate hike in March are rather slim.
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