Recession argument over for now?
The New York Times got out ahead of this morning’s jobs report with a warning that we should expect job growth to slow down in July, thanks to Federal Reserve action to tamp down inflation.
Oops:
We’ll get back to the February 2020 numbers in a moment. First, this may be the one sour note in the data:
We added 528,000 jobs but sent another 303,000 into part-time work for economic reasons? Yes, that’s still below the February 2020 level, but that’s a mighty big jump in parallel with the largest monthly jobs add in months.Worth noting, too: the labor force actually shrank by 239,000 while adding 528,000 jobs. That certainly seems curious.
Clearly something is going on in the job market to push in both directions. But what is it? Wage growth appeared to remain steady, while still well below the inflation rate:
Wages grew at a year-on-year 5.2% rate in a 9.3% inflationary environment. That’s still a significant wage erosion, and it’s not getting better.
